


Intertwined Destinies I R

by Ruin_Rider



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2021-04-06
Packaged: 2021-04-12 05:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21606535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruin_Rider/pseuds/Ruin_Rider
Summary: When Daniel and Samantha found themselves in Traverse Town, many new and confusing experiences were ready to lead them down a road of questions they never new they had; one of them being why everyone seemed to want to pick on this boy with a key.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I initially published the first chapter over at fanfiction. It took a while, but I finally have the second chapter made. I'm hoping to gain more motivation by also posting this story on here. This is a remake of a story I wrote almost a decade ago now. I hope you enjoy it.

When expecting death, it might not come as a surprise that pain would be involved. Usually, it is hoped that the pain would disappear quickly, though. This was not the case for Daniel. His whole body felt like it was on fire as he writhed about. He would have screamed, but it would have taken too much effort. A bright light appeared, barely being noticed by Dan, with his eyes shut tight. The light died down and the pain finally decided to go away.

The boy became still. Surely he was dead. His whole life didn’t pass by in his mind, but he never really believed in that myth anyway. He waited patiently for about a minute, but nothing happened. He then figured it wouldn’t hurt to open his eyes.

A night sky filled to the brim with twinkling stars revealed itself to the boy. He was momentarily mesmerized by the stars, never being able to see such a sight due to light pollution, until he noticed a hand reaching out for them. It was his hand. Going from complete pain to none made him feel like his body was completely gone. Before he could be excited about still having a body, something landed on it to remind him that his pain receptors still worked.

“Dan, you’re okay!” The blonde head of a girl appeared in his view.

“Sam?” His sister continued to hug him tightly. “What happened?”

“I thought you were – I thought...” Tears were forming around her eyes. Dan pushed himself up, Sam being forced to rise with him. They were in an alleyway surrounded by stone buildings with wooden trimming. This didn’t seem right, though. He didn’t recognize this place nor remember how they got there. He wracked his brain, trying to remember what the last thing they were doing was.

“Weren’t we falling?” He blurted out.

Sam lowered her eyebrows in confusion. “Falling?”

Dan then remembered more. “That’s right! That big earthquake happened and we fell down a chasm!”

Sam let go of him and stood up. Her concentrated look made Dan think she was also try8ing to remember the events. “But how did we end up here?”

Dan stood up while patting dust off of his shorts and replied, “Beats me. The last thing I remember is, well, yeah...” He trailed off, not wanting to speak about his experience.

“Uh, well, I guess we should figure out where we are, then,” Sam said, trying to change the subject. “This place doesn’t really look familiar.” She frowned as she looked around the alley. The architecture was pretty bizarre. It was as if they were somehow teleported into a different culture or era.

The two walked out of the alley to find themselves in what must have been the business district of the city. A courtyard laid in front of them with a few people walking around in it. An outdoor café was to the right of the courtyard while two massive doors were to the left and across from them. The building right next to them, with a large, glowing sign that read “jewelry” easily grabbed Sam’s attention. “I know where we’re going first.” Dan simply sighed as he was dragged into the building.

“Hey there, how can I- “The shopkeeper stopped his sales pitch when he noticed how old the two were. “Aw, not more kids.”

“Excuse me, I am plenty old enough to be considered an adult,” Sam quickly took offense to the man’s remark.

Dan shook his head. “Eighteen is still pretty young, you know. Besides, we don’t know if...” He stopped as he actually took a good look at the shopkeeper. His blonde hair and gruff face looked very familiar.

Sam continued on with her tirade. “It shouldn’t even matter my age, I came here to shop, and as a customer, you shouldn’t be trying to insult me.” She had a tendency to not like being called a kid.

“All right, all right. Just holler if you need anything, “the man waved her off.

While still perturbed, Sam decided to let him off easy and started to browse the jewelry collection. Dan continued to stay glued to his spot, starring at the shopkeeper. “What kind of a selection is this? Don’t you have any earrings or at least some necklaces?” She only found some chains that looked too big to use for anything and a few rings.

“Hey now, earrings cost quite a bit to make,” the man retorted. “I’m lucky enough to have what I’ve got. And until that stupid moogle workshop up there finds more materials, don’t expect anything fancy.” Sam followed the shopkeeper’s gaze up to a trap door on the ceiling with a ladder lying across it. She suddenly had a dreadful feeling that she had come upon a child labor shop.

Before she could ask about the workshop, Dan muttered out, “Cid?” After hearing the word “moogle,” he couldn’t ignore how the shopkeeper looked like a certain Final Fantasy character. The white shirt, broad, blue pants and brightly colored, tall belt wasn’t the usual getup he’d normally wear, but everything else about him seemed right. The piece of straw in his mouth instead of a cigarette made Dan question if this was a smoke-free environment.

Sam looked on curiously as Cid answered, “Yeah?” He waited for a moment, expecting a reply, but he didn’t get one. “Do I know you?”

Dan’s expression didn’t change as he looked down to the ground. “No, sorry, you just look like a Cid.”

Cid grunted while rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

The entrance to the shop swung open quickly and then slammed shut, causing the three to look over at a boy bracing himself against the door. He looked like he could belong in a circus with his attire. Unordinary large, yellow shoes adorned his feet, which matched well with what initially looked like red shorts, but was actually an onesie that went all the way up to his neck. A white jacket with blue trimming was worn on top and matching, fingerless gloves were on his hands. A seemingly useless, blue belt was wrapped around his waist. Sam ended up staring at the impossible brunette spikes that made the boy’s hair. They went in several directions and must have been a paint to gel, if that is even how they got that way

“The – the Heartless are attacking!” the boy shouted. Dan looked at him in concern while Sam’s eyes went wide.

Cid, on the other hand, waved the boy off, sighing, “Not again. Just wait a bit and they’ll eventually leave the district.” The boy didn’t seem to believe that, but after looking out one of the small windows on the doors, he calmed down and said they were gone.

The room seemed to become more relaxed as the group settled down, but Dan felt he was missing a pretty important piece of information here. “What are the Heartless?”

The room was silent. Sam kept her head down in thought, and Cid seemed confused by the question but couldn’t quite think of where to start. Sora looked completely perplexed by the siblings’ appearance, having just noticed them. “What do you mean?” Sora asked. “Didn’t the Heartless show up on your world? How else did you get here?”

World? Were they on a different planet? He didn’t even answer Dan’s question, but instead brought up even more questions. “We’re not sure how we got here,” Sam answered. “We just kind of showed up.”

“So I take it that means those two aren’t your friends,” Cid said disappointingly.

The boy shook his head. “No, definitely not.”

“Wow, harsh, man,” Dan folded his arms to his chest. If the guy wouldn’t answer his question, then he might as well toy with him.

“What? That’s not what I meant – I don’t even know you!” It seemed to rile the boy up in a fit of confusion.

Dan smirked at his success before getting punched in the shoulder by his sister. “Ignore him; he’s just trying to be funny.” She headed to the doors, passing the boy, and looked out the window. She didn’t see anything; the small crowd that was in the courtyard was gone. “No one’s out there,” she muttered. Facing the boy, she introduced herself. “Oh, my name’s Samantha. The doofus over there is Daniel.” Dan grunted in annoyance at his introduction.

“The name’s Sora,” the boy said confidently.

Sam nodded her head at him. “Okay Sora, well we’re going to head out now.” She dropped her cheerful attire and added, “The jewelry here stinks anyway.”

“I heard that!” Cid shouted. “You should probably go too, kid,” he said to Sora. “You’re bound to find your friends somewhere.”

The three left together. Dan was pretty happy to finally be out of that store, but as soon as the doors were closed behind them, he turned to Sora and once again asked, “So what are Heartless?”

Sora rubbed the back of his head with his left hand. “Uh, well I’m not really sure myself.” The disappointment on Dan’s face was a bit too obvious. “The creatures showed up on my island before I got here, and the only way I could defend myself was with this.” Raising his right hand up, a bright light flashed and a giant key with a guard around the base appeared.

“What!” Sam gasped at the sight of the weapon. Dan looked dumbfounded, both at the reveal of the weapon and its appearance.

“Umm, a giant key?”

“Hey, it’s a pretty good weapon!” Sora defended himself.

“Sure, I bet you can easily unlock people’s death with that.” Dan chuckled.

Sora was trying to come up with a retort, but someone behind him spoke up. “They’ll come at you out of nowhere.”

Sora whirled around and the three saw a figure walk up to them. “Who are you?”

The figure ignored him and continued. “And they’ll keep on coming at you, as long as you continue to wield the Keyblade.” Stepping into the light, the figure revealed himself to be a man wearing a leather jacket with a white undershirt, leather pants and matching leather gloves. The spiked down, brunette hair and plenty of belts once again reminded Dan of a Final Fantasy character. The man held his hand to his forehead, right above a scar that went down the middle of his face. “But why, why would it choose a kid like you?” He definitely didn’t seem happy about the predicament.

Sora took that question very personally. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind,” the man reached out his arm and moved slowly toward him. “Now let’s see that Keyblade.”

Sora readied himself for a fight. “What? There’s no way you’re getting this!”

The man smirked. “All right then, have it your way.” He took out a blade with a hilt that looked like a revolver and held it in both of his hands.

Without warning, he charged at Sora, causing the boy to barely jump out of the way of a strong swing. Sam and Dan backed up in fright. Thankfully, the man chased Sora down to the courtyard, leaving the siblings alone above.

“This is not good,” Dan said, crouching behind the railing. It looked like Sora wasn’t new to sword fighting, but his challenger barely left any openings to attack, constantly swinging his sword when near or shooting a fireball out of the gun-part when Sora moved too far away.

“Yeah, but Sora has a – um, that Keyblade thing. That should mean he’s a good fighter, right?” Sam looked on from behind the railing as well. Unfortunately, it didn’t look good for Sora.

“It doesn’t matter, if he’s fighting Squall.” Dan muttered.

“Who’s ‘Squall?’ And for that matter, how did you know Cid’s name?” Sam demanded.

Dan’s head dropped down, giving him a better view of the cobblestone ground. After a bit, he replied, “They’re videogame characters. They’re from the Final Fantasy games, but they aren’t even in the same game as each other.”

Sam began to relax while listening to him, though she was still confused by the answer. Once he stopped, she cocked her head and stated, “That’s weird.”

“I just don’t get why Squall is fighting Sora. He was the main character of his game, and a hero.” Dan went back to watching the fight. Squall looked like he was getting tired, but Sora looked like he was about to fall over. “Why is he fighting a kid?”

“I guess he really want that key.” Sam figured. “Wait, Sora isn’t from a game, is he?”

Dan shook his head. “Not that I know of. I think I’d remember a game with him in it, unless he was just some random background character.”

They continued to watch the fight for a bit more before Sam started to wonder why they weren’t using this time to escape. Sure, Sora seemed like a nice guy, but she’d rather care about her and Dan’s lives first. She turned to tell him to move, but she stopped when she noticed him tense up. She looked back at the courtyard to see Sora had fallen over on to his back. He was out cold. She quickly tried to grab Dan and run, but Dan jumped over the railing, muttering, “This isn’t right,” and ran between Squall and Sora.

“Get out of the way, this doesn’t concern you,” Squall pointed his blade at Dan.

“But why did you attack him?” Dan raised his arms up, trying to block the man from getting past him.

“I have to take that Keyblade – “

“But why? It’s just a weapon! Y – You’re supposed to be a – he’s just a kid!” He wasn’t even sure what was causing this anger to erupt, but Dan was happy to have it over fear at the moment.

Squall seemed to be done trying to answer questions. “Move now or I’ll make you.”

Sam’s body was completely tensed up watching the two’s standoff. She let out a great sigh of relief when her brother spat out, “fine.” He turned around and looked down at Sora’s still form. Squall slowly walked up to them. Sam stood up and started to make her way to the stairs when Dan suddenly rushed over and grabbed the Keyblade form the boy’s hand. He made a wide slash behind him, causing Squall to leap back to avoid the attack.

“Suit yourself,” Squall grimaced, followed by launching a fireball at Dan. Dan ducked down to avoid the blast while running towards Squall. Mimicking Sora, Dan lashed out with three attacks while holding the Keyblade with both hands. There was definitely something he didn’t like about the way he was holding the blade, but he had to put his mind back on Squall in order to back away from a wide swing.

“I can tell Sora tired you out a bunch,” Dan quipped. Squall answered by jumping at him, swinging his sword down. Dan tried to block it, but the Keyblade was pushed out of the way and his chest took most of the attack. The pain surprisingly didn’t feel that bad, but the shock of being struck by a sword remained on his mind. Blood started to pool around the wound, surprising Squall.

Dan touched the wound with his left hand, and then brought it up to his face to see the crimson left on his fingers. “I, ugh, think I need to finish his soon.” He shakily pointed the Keyblade towards Squall with his right hand. Squall lowered his blade slightly, seeing how his opponent looked to be losing his energy, but Dan suddenly shot right at him, swinging rapidly at different angles, making it difficult to block them all. Squall soon found himself on one knee and keeping his sword held up in a position to stop himself from taking any more hits. Dan finally started to lose his steam, which gave Squall time to raise his blade and shoot a fireball point blank into Dan’s face. Dan landed next to Sora’s body, joining him in his forced slumber.

Squall stayed kneeling to rest for a second, but quickly stood up when he heard a fast set of footsteps approaching him. The steps quickly stopped when he turned his sword towards them. “Please, I don’t want to fight!” Sam sputtered out.

“I hope you don’t feel too upset that I don’t believe you.” Squall remained still, waiting for her to make a move.

“But Dan’s going to lose too much blood if I don’t do anything!” She pointed behind Squall, who reluctantly took a quick glance towards the boy he just fought. The crimson liquid was forming a puddle on the cobblestone pavement. He realized there were specs of it all over his arms and chest from when he was being attacked by the boy.

Sam quickly took this chance to rush over to Dan’s side. The wound was decently deep and she realized there was nothing she could do in her state. “Just take the stupid weapon!” She shouted while pressing her hands on the wound. “But please, do you have anything to help with this wound? It’s really bad! You’re supposed to be a good guy, right?” She looked over to Squall, who sheathed his blade.

“Yuffie.” A girl appeared behind Squall, as if he announced her presence. The mixture of browns, yellows and blues on her short-shorts, short top, scarf, removable sleeves, and headband confused Sam on whether she wanted to be sneaky or obvious to find.

Yuffie scrounged around in her pockets before saying, “Looks like I have some potions. For the right price, I guess I coul – hey!” Squall snatched a bottle from her and held it out to Samantha.

Sam looked at the bottle, down to her bloody hands still pushing on Dan’s chest, then back to the bottle. “Right, sorry.” Squall poured the content of the bottle into Daniel’s mouth. Instantly, the wound on his chest sealed itself up, though the blood remained.

Sam lifted her hands up slowly, making sure the wound really was sealed. No more blood came out. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding in before grabbing the Keyblade from Dan’s hand and standing up. “You idiot! You almost killed him!” She shouted at Squall.

“He was the one that started the fight,” Squall tried to answer calmly, but there was a sense of confusion and worry in his voice.

“Whatever; just take this stupid thing and go.” The Keyblade was thrusted forward, right in front of Squall, where he could safely grab it. He tried to protest, but Samantha cut him off. “My brother says you’re a hero. You didn’t let him die, so I’m trusting that he’s right. You better’ve had a good reason for all of this.”

“I’m no hero,” Squall said while taking the Keyblade, “but thank you. The Heartless are drawn to the Keyblade. Keeping it away from wielders will lower their activity.”

“They can sense the weapon?” Samantha turned to Sora’s and Dan’s unconscious bodies. “What kind of creatures are they?”

“We can tell you if you come with us!” Yuffie piped up. “I mean, I guess it’s the least we can do after beating up your brother. He could definitely use a bath. “She pinched her nose while finishing talking.

As much as Sam wanted nothing more to do with these people, Yuffie had a point. And if those Heartless appeared, she wouldn’t be sure what to do. “Okay, fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

Unfortunately, getting used to waking up in pain doesn’t make the pain any less sore. Daniel groaned as he tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Sharp pains that felt like several tiny icicles being pierced into his chest caused him to fail and fall back onto a questionably cushioned surface. After opening his eyes, he discovered a bed was placed under him - wait, no, he must have been taken to the bed.

“Here, drink this.” A girl in scantily clad clothing came out of nowhere and shoved a bottle into Dan’s face. Despite the pain, Dan bolted out of the way, but ended up on top of another person.

“Hello to you, too,” Sora murmured as Dan got off of him and sat against the wall, back on his own side of the bed. “I heard you tried to help me. Thanks for that, I guess.” Sora rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Dan furrowed his brows at that. “What? But where are we?” Another sharp pain caused him to hug his arms around his chest.

“You should really drink this now,” the girl once again held the bottle in front of Dan. “I could just keep it for myself or sell it, you know.”

“Yuffie,” Squall chided from across the room. He was leaning against a door; the only escape route? No, there were two other doors. As long as they didn’t lead to a bathroom and a closet, Dan should be fine. Yuffie pouted as she dropped the bottle onto Dan’s lap and called Squall a party pooper.

“Hey, how come I didn’t get a potion?” Sora complained. This only made Dan more confused by the bottle, although less cautious of it. He picked it up and examined the clear liquid inside of it.

“You didn’t take nearly as many hits to knock you out, that’s why,” Yuffie stuck her tongue out as Sora. “But if you really want one, I guess I could lose one for, say, fifty munhy?”

“What, that’s a ridiculous price!” Sora whined. “I’ve never paid more than thirty munny for one!” Daniel was somewhat amused by the name of the currency they used, but still was unsure of what to do with the potion in his hand. It didn’t seem to be the kind of magical potion he would think of. Surprisingly, Sora noticed his hesitations. “So are you going to drink it?”

“Um, y-yes?” Dan stuttered out. Sora decided to have the patience to watch, so Dan opened up the bottle and took a swig. Before he could even think about the lack of a taste, he felt the pain in his chest fade away greatly. He downed the rest of the liquid and felt satisfied by a complete lack of pain. He looked up to notice everyone was still staring at him.

“Uh, thanks,” Dan mumbled. Then, trying to regain his voice, he asked, “but where are we? I thought you just wanted that key.”

Sora wagged his finger at Dan. “They already told me everything. They took the Keyblade from me to stop the Heartless from tracking me.”

Dan raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s ‘everything?’”

“Well there was other stuff, too!” Sora crossed his arms. “The Heartless attack people to get their hearts, and that can make even more Heartless!” Sora looked down at the floor, a bit shaken, “I actually saw it happen to someone right before meeting you.”

“What? That’s awful; things like that exist?” Dan looked around at everyone, but they stayed quiet. “Wait, where’s my sister?”

“She’s fine,” Squall answered. “She went to get the two of you new clothes. Your’s were no longer wearable after…” He trailed off, not wanting to mention the incident.

“You were a pretty big mess, you know,” Yuffie added. ‘It took a lot of work to clean you up.”

Dan looked at himself, initially unsure of what she meant, before finally realizing his clothes were switched out for a white, cotton shirt and leather pants. “But what - who…” The devilish grin on Yuffie’s face answered his questions.

Yuffie and Sora burst into laughter after seeing Dan’s face go bright red. “Nice, you match ZSora’s outfit now,” Yuffie sniggered.

Squall decided to finally step away from the door. “Sora, there are some people I’d like for you to meet. Dan, I’ll finished explaining things to you once your sister comes back. There are a few questions I have for you as well. Aerith should be ready, though.” Dan was both confused by Squall having questions for him and yet another Final Fantasy character being involved, but decided to go with the flow. As Squall reached for the door, Yuffie shrieked as a medium-sized creature that looked like it was wearing a helmet, like what a suit of armor has, popped into the middle of the room. Leon quickly grabbed his sword and slashed at the creature, causing it to smash through the window behind Dan and Sora. “Come on!” Squall shouted as he opened the door next to them and rushed outside.

Sora instantly got up, but Dan stayed sitting, still shocked at what he saw. “Hurry up, Dan!” Sora beckoned.

“Was that a-” Dan started.

“We need to go, there will be more!” Dan continued to stay still. “Y-your sister, Sam; we need to find her!” Dan shot up at hearing this.

“Right.” They ran through the open door and met with Squall in the alleyway below the balcony to their room. He slashed at a few of the Heartless to make a path for them.

“Here.” He held out a sword to Dan, who hesitantly took it. “Don’t bother with the small fry. Find the leader! Let’s go!” He then ran off down the alley.

“Where did he get this from?” Dan glanced at the sword he was given. It looked to be short enough to be held by just one hand and thankfully was light enough as well. He really didn’t know much about swords.

Sora ran off the other direction and Dan quickly followed, not wanting to be left behind. Doing as Squall said, they mostly avoided the Heartless they ran across. It would have been suicidal to try to fight all of them. Eventually, they went through a pair of doors labeled “3rd District.”

The new district consisted of a square with some level and elevated paths connecting to its corners. Sora and Dan ran down the steps to the square, but stopped near the middle when they heard a loud noise behind them. They looked up in time to see two bodies falling right towards them.

Sora continued running forward to avoid them while Dan dodged to the side. The crash of body hitting body indicated that Sora didn’t get out of the way in time. Dan looked over to see a large, humanoid duck and dog in clothing laying on top of Sora. They both seemed dazed, but the sight of Sora’s weapon got them out of their stupor as they exclaimed, “the key!”

The ground started to violently shake before proper introductions could take place. Pillars similarly designed to the tile pattern of the floor erupted from the ground, blocking them in the square. The three collapsed figures quickly jumped to their feet as more of the armored Heartless appeared around them. “I hope the two of you can fight,” Dan said as he readied his sword.

The duck readily accepted the challenge as he shouted, “fire,” with his raspy voice. A ball of fire sprouted form the stave in his hand and shot towards one of the Heartless, exploding it into nothingness. Daniel only took a second to express shock before running in with the others. The dog used a small, circular shield to ram himself into the Heartless while Sora did his usual three-hit combos. Dan tested out a few swings of his sword using only his right hand before deciding quick, vertical swings or stabs seemed to work best for him.

Soon enough, all of the Heartless were taken out. As the four started to group back pu, though, large armor pieces in the shape of body parts fell from the sky. They floated together to form a full body, with a helmet falling directly onto the chest piece to finalize itself. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” the duck said, exasperated.

“We can take it!” Sora shouted, albeit not quite as confidently as he was hoping to sound. Dan, on the other hand, was trying very hard to stop his legs from shaking.

“I - I don’t think-” Daniel was interrupted by the dog charging towards the giant Heartless, shouting a war cry that befit how goofy he looked. Sora and the duck followed right after the dog. They all started to whack and slice away at the separate body parts while the Heartless slowly walked forward, each step making a loud, metallic clank as the feet hit the ground.

The Heartless stopped after finally noticing it was being attacked. Its body wouldn’t even flinch from the blows! The clawed gauntlets started to circle around the Heartless’ body until they turned into a blue blur. Sora nd the duck were sent flying by the quick force, but the dog somehow managed to deflect the gloves with his shield, causing them to fly off and land on the pavement right in front of Dan, stunned.

“Dan, attack them!” Sora shouted.

Daniel started at the gauntlets, glanced over at Sora, then brought his gaze back to the gauntlets. The sword was starting to feel a lot heavier in his hand. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried again and was able to whisper, “alright.” A lunge brought Dan right to the gauntlets, allowing him to slash and stab at them several times before they were able to regain composure and rise back up into the air.

As they were about to get back to full height, a fireball impacted on them and they disintegrated. The duck jumped up in joy and raspily shouted, “that’s how it’s done!”

“They can be destroyed.” A new found hope pushed away Dan’s fears, but his limbs seemed to only want to jitter even more. The others were able to take this time to continue attacking the armor. Sora jumped up to deal some hits to the torso while the dog slammed his shield into one of the feet. The duck shot another ball of fire at the same foot, buit it remained standing. It seemed to be more resilient than the gauntlets.

Dan decided to help out with the feet, but all of the armor suddenly lifted up into the air and started to spin around quickly. With a mighty crash, the armor pieces slammed into the ground knocking everyone flat. The dog with the shield helped Dan back up to his feet. “Gwarsh, this fella looks to have two left feet, huh.”

Daniel couldn’t tell if the dog was talking about the armor or him, but thankfully Sora was able to deal the last needed damage to take out both of the armor’s feet. “Just, uh, one left?” Dan stammered as they all looked up at the floating body. It took no time for it to change tactics as it started to spin around like a top. Everyone braced themselves around the armor waiting to see what would happen.

The armor did not disappoint as it quickly lashed out and swiftly moved around the plaza, slamming and bnouncing away from any wall it hit. Sora dived out of the way as the armor passed him by. The duck and Dan followed suite, but the dog stood his ground, shield held out defensively.

The armor rammed itself into the dog with a mighty force, causing Daniel to flinch, but the dog somehow held his ground. The shield had sparks flying off of it as the armor continued to rapidly spin itself into it. Dan couldn’t believe his eyes when it looked like the armor’s rotation started to slow. The dog kept up his defense as the armor spun slower and slower, but right as it came to a full stop, some kind of shockwave warped out of the armor and sent the dog flying.

The duck ran over to the dog with one of those potion bottles in hand. Dan’s grip on his sword tightened as he watched the armor sway slightly as if it was dizzy. “Sora, now!” Sora nodded then jumped in to attack the armor with Dan. Their flurries of attacks etched around the chest and back of the bell-shaped metal, trying to deal as much damage as they could before the armor continued to attack.

The helmet floating above the body piece finally focused on the two boys attacking it and the armor began to charge up its rotation again. “Not again!” Sora cried out as they continued their assault. The armor’s spinning went faster and faster and, as it was getting set to launch, the duck and dog joined in on the attack.

With the four of them combined, the armor violently started shaking and quickly spun to a stop. It then slowly started floating upward, but the helmet rolled out of its levitated position and fell onto the torso below. With a bright, blue flash, the armor disintegrated as a large heart=shaped light floated up into the sky. Daniel watched in awe as the blue heart spirated up and then disappeared.

All at once, the four of them slumped to the ground in exhaustion. “I - I didn’t know,” Sora took a deep breath, “they can get that big!” The others continued to pant in silence.

The night sky and the cool, tiled floor felt heavenly to Dan as he tried to calm his body. The day had just continued to get crazier and crazier for him. Never would Dan have thought that he would be finding himself in a mysterious town full of game characters and monsters. Just the day before, he had been… A frown appeared on his face. The only thing he could remember was the feeling of falling.  _ When _ exactly was the “day before?” Where was he before-

“Dan!” Several loud footsteps rapidly made their way to the group. Daniel was pushed further to the ground by Sam as she rammed into him. “You’re okay!” She hugged him tightly for a few seconds, then, still clasping his upper arms, began to examine him. “Do you have any cuts, bruises, a headache? Do you feel any kind of burning sensation?”

“No, just embarrassment,” Dan pulled his sister and himself up to their feet; his cheeks burning red. Squall and Yuffie stood before them. Yuffie was beaming a smile while Squall scowled as usual. Though there was a slight difference in his eyes. They looked more relaxed.

“So, you were looking for me?” Sora looked at the duck and dog. The three of them were also up now. The two newcomers nodded.

Leon crossed his arms. “They too have been seeking the wielder of the Keyblade.” Yuffie affirmed this statement with a nod.

“Why don’t you come with us? We can go to other worlds on our vessel,” the dog joyfully chatted. This took Daniel by surprise. Sora literally just met them and now they’re asking for him to join them in off-world travel? What’s next, Yuffie pulling out a ring and proposing to Dan?

No wedding proposal came from Yuffie, but Leon proposed, “Sora, go with them. Especially if you want to find your friends.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sora halfheartedly muttered.

The duck wasn’t taking any of that though. “But you can’t come along looking like that, understand?” He wagged a feathery finger toward Sora. “No frowning. No sad face. Okay?”

“Yeah, ya gotta look funny, like us!” the dog added, pushing himself in front of the duck.

“This boat runs on happy faces,” the duck pushed the dog back, allowing both of them to be in the spotlight of the conversation.

Sora looked down at the ground. “Happy?” Everyone started at the boy. Squall and Yuffie looked on with a hint of amusement. The animal duo waited expectantly, holding rather goofy expressions as their example. Daniel had concern all over his face while Samantha - wait, she was staring over at a nearby fountain that had statues of two dogs - actual dogs, not like the one wearing clothes nearby - kissing.

Sora then quickly raised his head up so everyone could see his ridiculous face. His eyes were wide open and a large smile bordering on looking painful left Daniel dumbfounded. Sora lost his composure, becoming embarrassed by the silence, but then the two animals burst out into laughter. Dan couldn’t help but chuckle along with them. “Okay, why not? I’ll go with you guys.” Sora stepped up to the two.

They proceeded to stack their hands together, the duck calling himself “Donald Duck,” the dog “Goofy,” and Sora “Sora,” of course.

Dan walked up to the other boy. “You sure about this?”

“It’s the only way I can look for my friends. Besides, what is there to do here?” Dan couldn’t really disagree with Sora there. The boy then grinned at Dan, an idea forming in his head. “Hey, why don’t you come with us too?”

“What!?” Dan looked around. That came out of more than just his mouth. “We don’t have enough room! We can’t just add another person to the part,” Donald quacked out.

“Two people,” Sam corrected. “Where he goes, I go.” Daniel nodded his head in agreement. He wasn’t just going to abandon her.

Goofy looked questioningly at Donald. “I’m pretty sure our ship can hold five people.” The duck slapped his own face in response.

“Maybe they should go with you.” Dan wasn’t sure if he was more surprised that Squall thought they should go with, or that it was a suggestion and not a definitive statement.

“The more the merrier, right?” Goofy grinned, still looking at his duck companion.

Donald gave a long, exasperated sigh before rasping out, “aw phooey.”

“It’s decided then!” Sora pumped his fist into the air.

“Wh - wait!” Through all this trouble, Daniel wasn’t even sure if he  _ wanted _ to go on this possibly extremely dangerous adventure with people he just met. He guessed it wasn’t like he’d be leaving anything behind but… “Sam, what do you think?”

“Huh?” Samantha held her chin with a hand while surveying the others. “Well, it might be dangerous hanging around a Keyblade if it draws, uh, monsters to us. What would we get by exploring other worlds?”

“I guess we could also look for our friends,” Dan stated.

“Our… friends.” Sam walked over to the fountain with the dog statues, her back to the others.

Dan began to scratch his nose. “Look, we can sta-”

“‘Okay, why not? We’ll go with you guys.’” Sam turned around with a smile. The duck signed again, probably having hoped they would stay.

“Did she just copy me?” Sora questioned.

“Oh, right,” Daniel put on a smile himself. “I guess you guys did say this boat runs on happy faces.”

“Ahyuck, that’s right!” Goofy put his hand back out. The other four placed their hands in a stack above his, with Daniel and Samantha saying their names. “All for one and one for all,” Goofy concluded.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo to get myself back into writing. Prepare yourselves.

“Whoa,” Sora exclaimed as they all explored the inside of Donald and Goofy’s ship. When he heard they had a ship, he thought they were talking about a boat. This though...it was just incredible! The entire thing was enclosed with a gummy-like surface. Goofy called the material “Gummi blocks;” a pretty accurate name. The cockpit, where they would be seated during travel and could see outside, only had three chairs, but with the push of one of the many colorful, blinking buttons, two more came out of the floor.

“How much longer are those two going to take anyway?” Donald grumbled, being very clear with the tapping of his foot he wanted to leave now.

“I guess Leon must’ve had a lot to talk about with them.” Sora recalled how Sam and Dan had been asked to meet Leon in the morning before they all left. “So does this thing really fly?” Sora’s attention moved back to the steering wheel and all of the buttons.

“Of course,” Goofy responded. “But we all gotta have happy faces to power it.”

“How long did it take to make an engine like that?” The three turned around to find Samantha joining them in the cockpit. She was wearing the new outfit she bought which consisted of a pale green shirt with darker green, long sleeves and a light blue pair of jeans. Tan boots finished the setup.

“More likely they found the engine, not made it,” Daniel came up next behind his sister. He was now wearing an olive green, leather jacket over a black shirt, dark blue jeans and dark green sneakers. He put a hand to his chin in thought. “Though how they learned to power it…” He trailed off after noticing Donald and Goofy’s faces. Even when angry, the duck’s beak was always somehow bent into a smile. The dog was as goofy as ever. “Nevermind.”

“So you decided to go shopping and make us take a late departure, huh?” Donald plopped himself down in the pilot’s seat and started pressing and pulling all sorts of buttons and levers. The ship lit up and began to hum as the others quickly took their seats.

“I think you two look rather nice with the new duds,” Goofy commented as he put on his seat belts.

“Why thank you,” Sam responded as she mimicked how Goofy put on one seatbelt strap at a time. “And for your information, I picked out these clothes yesterday. Sorry for taking too long, uh,” She and Dan shared a look. “Talking with Leon and the others took pretty long.” The two had to get used to the name Leon since Squall for some reason didn’t like going by his actual name.

“Is all of this really necessary?” Everyone looked at Sora who was completely tangled up in all of the available seat belts. Daniel sniggered as he got up and loosened some of the belts so Sora could maneuver into a more comfortable position.

Sam glared at her brother as he sat back down. “What?” He asked.

“At least he’s wearing his seat belts!”

Dan waved her off. “Whatever, I’ll be fine.”

“Alright, blast off!” Donald challenged that notion by sending the gummi ship skyrocketing up and away from the ground. Daniel soon found himself on the floor, holding onto the bottom of his chair as each bump of the ship caused his whole body to shake. After another minute of this, the ship stopped rattling and they gracefully flowed forward.

Dan got up from the ground and became instantly stunned by the glowing reds, blues and greens of space. “You really weren’t kidding about traveling to different worlds.” Almost hidden by the colorful swirls were hundreds of stars twinkling far off. The clouds were obstructing their vision more than he thought as, only a few hundred feet away, giant blocks and obstacles similar looking to their ship appeared.

“We found a path to a new world quicker than i thought we would!” Donald gleefully weaved the ship around several blocks and through a hole in a giant asteroid.

“What do you mean?” Sam piped up. “It looks like a minefield to me.”

“These are all gummi blocks,” Donald explained. “They used to be barriers between the worlds, but a few years ago, something happened and paths were made. All of this stuff used to be a part of the barrier, so a hole to another world must be nearby.”

“That only happened recently?” Sam furrowed her brows. Some more blocks appearing took her attention. “Are those ones, like, moving faster?” She pointed at them.

“Waak, Heartless!” Donald shrieked as he pushed a big, red button. A transparent screen appeared in front of him with crosshairs in the middle of it. He then held down a button on the wheel and laser blasts shot out from the ship and tore into the oncoming danger.

“The Heartless have ships?!” Sora jumped out of his seat and smashed his face into the window as if it would help him see out better. The few ships remaining were quickly taken out by Donald’s aiming though. “Oh,” Sora dejectedly backed away from the window and summoned his Keyblade. “I was hoping to fight them.”

“You can’t just walk out there and whack at them!” Donald chastised. He straightened himself out and focused back on avoiding all of the obstacles. “Our defenses are top notch. There’s no way the Heartless will be an issue!”

Donald was pretty accurate with that statement as they continued traveling forward. Any enemy ships were quickly taken care of with only some slight damage to their ship, which was usually fixed up by running into collectible gummi blocks surprisingly.

Soon enough, they found themselves approaching what must have been a world. It had a glow to it that allowed everyone to see it through the colorful mist that enveloped their gummi ship. The world had a pink and red checkered pattern; a large castle surrounded by a hedge maze stood on the top while a cottage standing by several trees hung from the bottom of the world.

"Do all worlds look that small?" Daniel asked, curious as to how they were able to see buildings like that.

"Well if I remember correctly-" Goofy started.

"You would look small too if you were far away!" Donald retorted. Dan gave him a blank stare. The duck gave off a heavy sigh. "What we see is just a representation of what's down there. The world doesn't literally look like that."

After pulling a lever, Donald got out of his seat. "Time to get out!" The gummi ship was finally at a full stop and the door on the side opened up. "Now the first step in exploring a new world is to take the first step, plant your feet firmly on the grou-waak!" The duck's first step off the ship was a rather large one as he completely fell out. Goofy tried grabbing onto him, but ended up falling as well. Sam, then Dan, and then Sora joined the accidental chain and they all found themselves rather slowly falling down a lengthy hole.

The walls around them changed from dirt to a red tile decorated with paintings, and furniture started appearing around them. Samantha tried enjoying a rocking chair that came from below her, but it quickly leaned over and slid her off. Goofy decided to lie down and take a nap as the floor was still nowhere in sight.

"So..." Samantha started. "Um, are we just going to stop at every world we see and look all around for a few people?"

"Are you getting cold feet already?" Donald sounded a bit too hopeful while asking that.

"As cold as they currently feel, you know, hovering over a large hole, I'm still not planning on leaving you." She responded indignantly. "But do we have any information at all to go off of?"

Sora and Daniel were silent in thought but Donald quacked out, "The King said to find the key and stick with him!"

"And you found Sora, so I guess you succeeded. Did he say what to do next?"

Donald raised a feathered finger and opened his beak, but then stopped and thought for a second. "Stick with him?"

Sam let out an exasperated sigh, but Sora butted in, "My friends are out there somewhere and I want to see all these worlds. We can't just give up because there's nothing to go off of."

"This still sounds a lot better than staying at Traverse Town with Cid for the rest of our lives," Dan added. His sister grunted to show the conversation was at an end.

The floor finally decided to grace the party with its presence. Goofy happened to roll over at the wrong time and land on his belly while the others landed on their feet. Before they could get their bearings, a white rabbit dressed in nice clothing with a red suit jacket ran by shouting, "Oh, my fur and whiskers! I'm Late, I'm late, I'm late!" The rabbit panted while running in a zigzag motion away, continuing to shout about being late and a queen having his head.

"Shall we follow him?" Dan mused.

"Sounds good to me, ah-yuck!" Goofy chuckled as they followed the rabbit.

After rounding a corner, they found a closed door with no sign of the rabbit. Sora opened the door, but another smaller door was right behind it. "Waak! Quit fooling around!" Donald shouted at either Sora or the door (no one could really tell). As if expecting a different result to happen, the duck opened the second door and walked in only to bump into a third even smaller door. What could only be described as quacks that should not be made near children erupted out of Donald's bill as he grabbed and slammed open door after door. The others could only stare dumbfoundedly at the poor care towards these doors. With the last door opened, Donald fell onto his hands while trying to reach for a mercifully nonexistent handle and banged his fists and feet onto the ground until he finally calmed down.

"Is he okay?" Samantha whispered to Goofy from safely behind him.

"Don't worry, ah-yuck, he does this all the time." Goofy reassured her.

"That's not normal!" Sam gasped. Everyone else ignored the outburst. Sora and Donald passed over the threshold of the strange doorway with ease while the others had to duck their heads.

On the other side was a well lit room with a bed against one wall and a fireplace and stove on the other. On the other side of the room from them was a very small door that they barely glimpsed the white rabbit run through. Sora ran up to the door and bent down to look at it. "How did he get so small?"

"No, you're simply too big." The doorknob on the door unexpectedly spoke out.

Donald jumped back, shouting, "It talks!" as the others also had shocked expressions.

The doorknob yawned loudly, the keyhole acting as its mouth. "Must you be so loud? You woke me up." Goofy cheerfully wished him a good morning, but the doorknob responded, "Good night! I need a bit more sleep." Then it gave another loud yawn.

Sora edged closer to the door, reaching his hand out. "Wait, what do we have to do to grow small?"

"Why don't you try the bottle...over there?" The doorknob somehow pushed its knob nose forward, pointing at a table and chairs that were definitely not there when they first entered the room. Daniel walked over and found two bottles standing on the table. One of them had a picture of a sapling turning into a tree while the other had the images reversed.

"This better not turn me into a baby," Daniel commented before taking a sip of the concoction within the latter bottle. His head took a nauseous spin as his body quickly shrunk him down to half the size of the leg of the chair he was standing next to. Goofy took a drink next as Dan went back to the door to try to open it. Unfortunately the doorknob was fast asleep and he didn't feel like assaulting the door open.

"Looks like we need another way-" Dan started to turn around but was pushed to the ground by a clawed attack from an all black Heartless. Goofy slammed into it with his shield before the Heartless was able to sink into the ground. The others were busy taking on more of the dark creatures, but there some colorful ones floating around Dan had never seen before. They were in the shape of bells and were either red or yellow, and they had a heart-shaped emblem on them like the armored Heartless in Traverse Town had.

Unsheathing his sword, Daniel rushed after the floating heartless and tried to swipe at them, but they leisurely floated out of the way. One of the red ones started to float around in a spiral motion, charging a ball of fire over its head. "That doesn't look good," Dan muttered while holding his sword in front to try to defend it. Before the Heartless could finish charging it though, a large foot stomped down on it, taking it and most of the other floating bells out.

"Don't think you can get at my brother while I'm around!" Sam cheered to herself. It looks like their enemies made a grave mistake in showing up before they all had shrunk down in size. The other Heartless stood no chance against her tap dancing prowess, some of them even disappearing back into the void they came from to avoid her wrath.

"Good thinking!" Sora shouted up to Samantha, but she only shouted back saying she couldn't hear him.

"So where do we go now?" Goofy asked the group. Dan mentioned the doorknob being asleep, so they all looked around the room for some other possible escape. Eventually, Sam found she could push the bed into the wall, revealing a large (respective to the shrunken party) hole on the adjacent wall to the bed.

After Sam took a swig to shrink down, she tried joining the others, but Dan got to her first and stopped her. "What's going on?" She asked.

"You, uh..." He was having a hard time trying to come up with the right words. "I don't want you to get hurt by the Heartless either."

"Aww, thank you for caring," she rolled her eyes at him. "I can take care of myself though." Before he could try to respond, she was already walking up to the rest of the group and they walked through the hole in the wall.

Awaiting them on the other side was an archway made out of a hedge with person-sized card soldiers holding spears or axes lining the walls. A courtroom of all things was at the end with a little, blonde girl in a white and blue dress standing at the defendant's podium.

The white rabbit they had been chasing ran up a spiral staircase to the top of a little tower, paused to catch his breath, then tooted out some sounds through a trumpet. "Court is now in session!" He rasped.

"I'm on trial? But why?" The girl gasped and looked around at everyone around her.

"Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, presiding!" The white rabbit continued, holding his hand out toward the judge's booth where a plump woman dressed in red and black with a crown on her head resided.

The Queen frowned while getting a good look at the girl. A heart-shaped fan in her hand looked like it was ready to break from her grasp. "This girl is the culprit. There's no doubt about it. And the reason is...because I say so, that's why!" The fan was waved around in a frenzy.

"That is so unfair!" the girl cried out.

The fan was slammed down like a gavel. "Well, have you anything to say in your defense?" The Queen leaned back with a smug look on her face, like she already knew nothing could change the outcome of the trial.

"Of course!" The girl pointed her finger at the Queen. "I've done absolutely nothing wrong!" She folded her arms together as the audience gasped. "You may be queen, but I'm afraid that doesn't give you the right to be so...so mean!"

The Queen's smirk quickly turned into quite a scowl as a tantrum comparative to one Donald would make started up. "Silence! You dare defy me?" she slammed both of her fists on the bench.

"Hey, guys, we should help her out." Sora quietly got the others' attention. It seemed no one had noticed them enter.

Donald looked troubled. "Yeah, but the-"

"We're outsiders, so wouldn't that be muddling?" Goofy advised.

"Meddling!?" Donald corrected him.

"Oh, yeah. Ah-yuck! And that's against the rules."

"But she looks like she's in way over her head there," Sam had her arms folded together and was tapping her foot nervously.

"The court finds the defendant..." Everyone held their breath as the Queen raised her fan into the air. "Guilty as charged!" The girl gasped. "For the crimes of assault and attempted theft my heart..." That led Sora to gasp. "Off with her head!" The Queen almost fell over the desk with how far she reached her fan out toward the girl.

The card soldiers gathered around the girl, ready to drag her to where the deed would be done. "No! No! Oh, please!" The girl waved her arms around in a manic sorrow.

"Hold it right there!" Sora dashed out toward the girl with Daniel right behind him. Donald, Goofy and Sam walk up to them as well.

"Who are you? How dare you interfere with my court?" The Queen growled down at them.

"Excuse me. But we know who the real culprit is!" Sora confidently stated.

"Uh-huh. It's the Heartle-" Goofy covered his mouth quickly to stop himself from ruining the world order.

Sora paused his speech to glance at Goofy, but Dan continued. "That girl has nothing to do with the attack on you. Do you really think she's even capable of such a thing?"

Surprisingly, the Queen seemed rather calm, leaning on the bench and tapping her finger. "Even little girls can be greedy. Do you have any proof of your statements?" Sora and Dan shared a look, unsure how to continue. A smirk grew on the Queen's face as she watched their egos deflate. "Bring me evidence of Alice's innocence! Fail, and it's off with all of your heads!" She leaned back against her chair. "Gather as much or little evidence as you please. Report back here once you're ready."

The card soldiers moved back to their original positions, except for two which led the girl named Alice into a girl-sized birdcage and locked her up.

"Now you've caused a big mess!" Donald chastised the two boys. "How are we supposed to prove she's innocent when we can't say who the real culprit is?"

"As reckless as they are, I didn't really want to watch a little girl get beheaded either," Sam said. "Maybe finding evidence that the Heartless, or some kind of monster, was around here would be enough."

"Maybe we should ask that Alice person how she even ended up in this mess?" Goofy suggested. The others saw no reason not to so they walked up to the bird cage.

Alice noticed them coming and once they stopped in front of her, asked, "Who are you?"

After a small introductory, Sora started up the more important question: "Why are you on trial in the first place?"

"I should like to know the very same thing!" Alice was close to rolling her eyes at the situation. "Apparently I was guilty from the moment I took the stand!"

"That's crazy! So, where are you from?" Sora continued.

"Hmm, curious," Alice pondered. "I can't quite remember. You see, I found this mysterious rabbit hole. When I tried to peek inside, I tumbled in head-over-heels...and I found myself here."

"So you're from another world!" The others quickly reminded Sora to stick to an inside voice.

Goofy thought about what she said. "That's funny. Maybe you don't need a ship, then." No one could try to comprehend how that would work.

Alice looked at them all with a very confused expression. "What do you mean 'another world'?" 

Thankfully the card soldier guarding the cage slammed his spear on the ground and shouted, "Enough! The defendant will be silent!"

Dan lightly punched Sora's shoulder as they all walked away. "Nice going. Guess we'll just have to search around for some evidence then."

As they left the courtyard, they ended up walking into a forest where they were reminded that they were not their normal sizes. Grass blades, flowers and mushrooms towered over them, and a puddle of water nearby was more like a small lake. "Where do you think we should start lookin' first?" Goofy asked.

"Hey, do you hear a voice?" Sam stopped and looked around them.

"That's not very nice. Why would you act like Goofy isn't-" Dan started.

"No, you idiot!" Sam slapped him on the arm. "There's someone else talking." They all craned their heads, trying to hear something off. There was a voice, and it was getting louder. Then, on a giant pebble, they noticed a mouth appear, hanging in the air with nobody supporting it. Purple and pink stripes traveled around near the mouth until a whole body of a cat was visible. Issue was that the head was actually below the rest of the body. One of the paws was stepping on it. The cat lifted its paw off and pulled the head onto the neck where it belonged and gave the party the widest grin they had ever seen. "That is freaky. I don't like you." Sam stated.

"Who are you?" Donald yelled at it, also not liking the cat very much.

"Who, indeed?" That cat talked, because of course it can. "Poor Alice. Soon to lose her head, and she's not guilty of a thing!"

Sora perked up at that. "Hey, if you know who the culprit is, tell us!"

"The Cheshire Cat has all the answers-but doesn't always tell. The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness." The Cheshire Cat then vanished into darkness.

Sora shouted for the cat to come back. It didn't, but they heard its voice echo around them. "They've already left the forest. I won't tell which exit. There are four pieces of evidence in all. Three are a cinch to find. The fourth is tricky. Big reward if you find them all."

The five all looked at each other. "Should we trust him?" Donald questioned.

The cat did return after this. "To trust, or not to trust? I trust you'll decide!" It then disappeared again.

"I think we can all agree that none of us like that cat," Dan had decided.

With nothing better to do, a wave of Heartless appeared in front of the group. More of the shadow creatures that could sink into the ground and a single, extremely rotund Heartless were ready to go on the offensive. Daniel instantly stepped in front of his sister as he drew his sword, but she pushed him to the side and started walking toward the enemy. "I told you I can handle myself." She reached into a small bag attached to her hip and pulled out a small object that ejected into a quarterstaff. Dan didn't look very reassured until she started spinning the staff around with both hands. Dashing into the Heartless, she whacked away at one of the shadows and it soon disappeared.

"I guess I stand corrected," Daniel ceded. It didn't take long for them to finish the rest of the Heartless off, though it did take a bit to learn they could only attack the large one from behind. Any attack from the front merely bounced off its thick skin. "Where did you learn to fight like that?" Dan asked Sam after they recuperated.

"Aerith taught me a bit while you were busy. Where did you learn to fight?" Sam sent the question back. He wasn't able to come up with an answer.

After that, the five decided to split up into two groups to more quickly search for evidence. Sora stuck with Donald and Goofy while the two siblings went off in a different direction. Sora, Donald and Goofy made quick work of any Heartless that appeared on the large lily pads or tree branches in the air. By the request of Sam, she and Dan remained on the ground and searched for clues that way. The two were able to find footprints that matched one of the types of Heartless they had seen before, and also found an antenna. They met the others back at the entrance of the forest, but they had only found…

"I don't want to know what that is! Put it away!" Sam shouted while pinching her nose. The stench coming from the box in Sora's hand was completely unbearable.

"So that means we won, right?" Dan smugly showed off their two evidence.

"A deal is a deal!" Goofy agreeably handed a bag of munny over while Donald looked at them in disapproval.

"Wait, this was a competition?" Sora asked. "Man, I would've tried a lot harder!" None of them could think of where else the supposed fourth piece of evidence could be though, so they decided to return to the courtyard.

A card soldier was ready for them as they approached the court. "Are you ready to present evidence before the Queen?"

"As ready as we'll ever be," Sora truthfully answered.

"Very well," the card said. "Counsel, step up to the podium."

Sora went up alone while the others stood in a guest box near the side. The Queen was smiling the whole time, still sure that she would be the victor. "Now, show me what you have found." Three card soldiers came out with boxes that the found evidence was put in. "Well, that's certainly a lot of evidence, but I'm still not impressed. Cards! Bring forth my evidence!" Two more cards appeared with identical boxes. "Hmm," the Queen pondered, "checking all five would only be a waste of time. All right, then. Choose the one you wish to present. I'll decide who's guilty based on that evidence.

"What?" Sora gasped. "After all the trouble of collecting it?"

The Queen quickly became ferocious. "You dare object? Then you will lose your head! Now, choose! One box!"

Sora looked at the others. Sam waved her hand as if to say "go on." Donald had his arms folded and was probably tapping his foot in anger. Dan gave him a shrug, and Goofy was looking at a rose bush nearby. Some of the white roses looked like they had red paint on them. Sora gave up in trying to fight back and picked one of the boxes after the card soldiers had mixed them up. Everyone watched in full curiosity as the box was opened to reveal…

"I knew it!" The Queen shouted. Above the box was floating an image of Sam and Dan. The real versions of the two were shouting their disagreements, but the Queen wanted nothing of it. "It will be off with your heads!" The box they were standing in disappeared and two cages erupted from the ground and captured the siblings, barely missing Donald and Goofy. The defendant's podium also disappeared and a tower with large cranks coming out of three of the sides sprung up instead. One of the card soldiers ran up and started cranking it, causing the bird cage Alice was in to move a curtain over her and rise up into the air. "Seize them at once!" The Queen ordered.

Sora readied his Keyblade and swung at the card soldier that dared to approach him first. Donald and Goofy rushed in to help him, leaving Sam and Dan in their cages. The black cards holding axes didn't have much of a chance against the longer reach of the Keyblade. Goofy's defensive maneuvers and Donald's magic also quickly swayed the battle towards their side, even with the card soldiers having a much larger amount of bodies.

"Cards!" The Queen shrieked, as most of the axe soldiers resembled a game of fifty-two card pickup on the field. "If they touch the tower, you lose your heads!" The red cards holding spears jumped in to help their brethren. They were much more formidable of opponents, being able to stab at Sora while staying far enough away to avoid the Keyblade. Donald looked to be running low on magic power and his staff, while capable of dealing blunt damage, was not designed to do so effectively. The two had to rely on Goofy's shield to keep them protected, but the card soldiers were slowly pinning them against the tower.

"Hey, she told them to stop you from touching the tower!" Dan shouted at the trio. "Maybe you should try touching it?" All he was capable of doing was watching, being unable to find any way out of the cage besides possibly digging far enough down through the ground he was standing on.

Being bothered to actually listen to Dan, Donald turned around as the other two continued to deflect the approaching spears and tried to move one of the cogs in the tower. It might as well have been rusted in place as no amount of the duck's strength was able to budge the thing. "Confounded thing!" He kicked at the tower, which just caused him to jump up and down on his other foot while holding the now in pain one.

The Queen was still shouting at her card soldiers during all of this. "Get them, you fools! Quit joking around!" It looked like she was ready to jump down from her seat and attack them herself.

Sam grimaced as she watched the debacle of this terrible trial. All of the shouting and sounds of metal upon metal and being unable to do anything about it was getting to her. Gritting her teeth, she pulled out her quarterstaff and pointed it at the Queen after hearing her call her soldiers fools for the millionth time. "Will you just-shut-UP!" A blast of fire shot out of the staff and went right into the Queen's chest. The siblings looked at the smoking tip of the quarterstaff in complete shock. To Sam's relief, this did get the rowdy queen to go quiet. If one were to look closely, they might have been able to see twinkling stars circle over her head as she sat back into her chair in a daze. All of the card soldiers dropped their guard and held their hands up to their faces to be able to get a better position at biting into their nails in deep fear.

A bit too soon after, the Queen sat back up, realized what was going on, and went back to shouting at the cards to go after the group again. A figurative lightbulb had turned on in Dan's head from seeing all of this. He looked back over to Donald and shouted, "What, is that little tower too much for a weak duck like you to handle? I guess I should have brought my grandma to take care of it instead!"

"What!?" Donald shrieked. He looked more surprised than angry.

"That's really uncalled for!" Sora said between blocking swings from a spear and axe.

"You're right," Dan continued, "it was completely uncalled for to rely on him. I don't know how anyone could even think to ask him to open a jar, let alone something simple as this."

Steam started gushing out of Donald's ear holes. "I'll show you!" Feathers started flying everywhere as a flurry kicking and swinging from the duck was unleashed on the tower. Moving the cogs was no longer a thought of his as the walls of the tower instead were completely demolished.

With the tower gone, the cages holding Sam and Dan retreated back into the ground and the birdcage holding Alice fell back to the ground. Everyone in the court became silent, pausing the battle to look at the cage as the curtain drew itself back. The Queen leaned over her desk and squinted at the now empty cage. "She's gone!" Sam announced.

The Queen slammed her fist into the table. "You fools!" Gathering the attention of all the card soldiers, she gave out an order, "Find the one who's behind this! I don't care how!"

All of the cards hurriedly ran around, some of them simply in circles until they realized what they were doing. None of them cared at all anymore that there were still people to be beheaded in the court. The Queen was busy fanning herself after working up a sweat from all of the shouting.

"Do ya think we should go help them with the search?" Goofy asked Sora and Sam.

"We need to find Alice before they do if we want to save her." Sora corrected Goofy. "Come on, let's go!"

"Can you-can you please stop him!?" Daniel shouted at the top of his lungs while running away from a still enraged Donald. The duck's lungs were quite strong as he continued to shriek without any stop for some breath while chasing after the boy.

After calming Donald down and having Dan apologize for insulting him greatly, they all went back into the forest to do some more sleuthing. As they approached where they first saw the Cheshire Cat, a flower twice their size bloomed and a large stone that would probably just be a pebble if the part was their normal size shot out of the flower and landed near the puddle of water. "I am getting so sick of this world," Sam complained. "Let's just try to find Alice before any more weird things happen." As soon as she finished those words, the Cheshire Cat appeared on top of the giant pebble. "No!" She pointed angrily at the cat. "I want none of you!"

"Oh, but it would be so disappointing for Alice to never be rescued." The cat purred.

Sora stepped up. "Have you seen Alice?"

"Alice, no. Shadows, yes!" Nothing could ever be easy with the cat.

The group waited for the Cheshire Cat to continue, but he didn't. "Where did they go?" Goofy asked.

The cat's head rolled down one arm and then got thrown into the air to land back on his neck, disgusting Sam further. "This way? That way? Does it matter? Left, right, up, down!" He pointed in all the directions. "All mixed up thanks to the shadows! Step deeper into the forest to the deserted garden. You might find shadows in the upside-down room!" The cat then vanished back from whence it came.

Sam led the others further into the woods, bickering about how she was going to cast fire at the cat the next time she saw him. They found a new path where a giant pebble used to be, possibly the same one that got shot out of a flower like a cannonball. At the end of the path was a nice looking cottage with a fenced in yard. It looked like a tea party had been set up there, but no one was in sight. This must have been the deserted garden the cat had mentioned. Surprised by how accurate the cat's words actually were, they stepped into the empty garden and up to the cottage's steps. Goofy politely knocked on the door, but after no one answered, Sora took the initiative to open the door and they all walked in.  
Instead of being greeted by the inside of a cottage, they instead found themselves a large, open room. One side of the room had a chimney while the other was barren except for two ramps on the corners. Two tables holding lamps were in the middle. Something about this room felt really off. To the dismay of Sam, the Cheshire Cat awaited them on the roof of the wall they emerged from. "They're hiding somewhere." The cat's smile widened. "And the momeraths outgrabe. Want to find the shadows? Try turning on the light."

"How's this for a light." Sam shot another ball of fire out of her staff but it missed the cat and ended up hitting one of the lamps and successfully lighting it. "Not a word," she glared at her snickering brother.

After more properly lit the other lamp, the cat appeared next to them again. "All the lights are on. You'll see the shadows soon. They'll arrive in this room, but somewhere else. The shadows might go after that doorknob, too."

"Wait, are they going to appear here or go after the doorknob? I don't get it." Sora questioned the Cheshire Cats words as it once again vanished.

"In this room, but somewhere else..." Donald looked around to see if there were any obvious locations a shadow could appear. After looking up, he quacked in surprise. "Look, it's the doorknob!" He pointed up at the ceiling, or actually the floor. Above them was the original room they found the doorknob and the bottle that shrunk them all. They were standing on the ceiling! The tables holding the lamps were actually chandeliers. "This is making me feel nauseous," the duck grumbled.

They all trekked back to the courtyard where the Queen was surprisingly relaxed while waiting for any sort of news. Her whole body was still extremely tensed up, but she was not currently shouting at anyone like a maniac. This could only be seen as a miracle. Back in the bizarre room, with the group now standing on the correct floor, they were able to see the doorknob still napping away.

"You'll have a better view from higher up." The Cheshire Cat waved at them from the top of the table. They all carefully climbed up to the top of the table using the chair as a lower platform. The cat was patiently waiting for them, tapping his front paw daintily on the table. "Are you prepared for the worst?" He said as he stood up. "If not, too bad!" He pointed up at the ceiling.

Everyone flinched as a giant Heartless that looked like it was made of paper mache fell down from above. It landed on the floor on its hands, then pushed back off the ground, flying over the table and landing on its feet on the other side. It's arms folded back out like an accordion and grabbed what looked like maracas in each hand.

"Quick, the bottles!" Dan turned around only to find the Cheshire Cat and the bottles were nowhere to be found. "Shoot, that cat is going to get us killed!" He turned back around and took out his weapon like the others were doing. "Anyone have any ideas?"

"Fire!" Donald cast a fireball at the heartless, but it blocked it with one of the maracas, which burst into flames. It turns out the Heartless was actually carrying giant matches.

"Any good ideas?" Dan corrected himself. Sora let out a battle cry as he jumped off of the table and hit the giant Heartless in the chest a few times. "Looks like the chest can be hit, good job!" Dan reminded himself that they were not doomed here. They were able to take out the large, armored Heartless back in Traverse Town, there's no reason why they can't take on this much larger one, with its flaming matchsticks it was juggling. Mustering what courage he could, Dan raised his sword high and began to run to the edge of the table, but he quickly diverted his body to run off the side of the table as the Heartless slammed its matches against the table, flattening it into the ground.

Without easy access to the Heartless' chest, everyone stood directly underneath it and tried to jump and get an attack in, but they were only able to do so one at a time, and could only get a small scratch in before landing back on the ground. On the other hand, the giant had an easy time swiping its matches down at the party. "This is ridiculous," Sam commented. Backing away from the rest of them, she swung her quarterstaff like she was hitting an invisible enemy, and a ball of white energy came out and homed into the Heartless' chest. Lowering the staff, she then made another upward strike and shot a second blast at the creature. After a few more attacks like this, the Heartless realized there was an actual threat to it, and it stepped over the boys to get to Sam.

"I don't think so!" Sora stabbed his Keyblade forward and slid across the floor to the chair that survived the initial flattening. Once on top of the chair, Sora jumped up and took several swings at the approaching paper chest. The Heartless went limp, falling onto its knees in a stunned state. This gave everyone the chance to attack its vulnerable head, but just like the Queen, the Heartless quickly jolted back up within no time and went back to juggling its matches. More of Sam's attacks homed in on the creature and it once again took an offensive approach against her. This time, it raised the matches and made a cross shape with them while lowering its legs. The fire from one of the matches spread to the other, then the Heartless jumped up and released a large ball of fire that tracked its way to Sam, hitting her on the shoulder. Another fireball came soon after hitting her just as hard, knocking her to the ground. As a third attack approached, she wearily raised her staff in the air to try to block it and looked away right as it got to her, but Goofy's shield blocked the fire. Goofy continued to stand in front of her, blocking any further magical attacks.

During this, Daniel ran after the Heartless, raising his sword for an attack. "How dare you!" He jumped up between the matches and the creature's body while it was still charging an attack and stabbed the sword right through its chest. The Heartless once again fell into its knees, but this time the body continued to crumble and fade away. A large, red, crystalline heart emerged from the Heartless' head and floated in the air before disappearing, just like what happened after they took out the armored Heartless. After staring at where the Heart disappeared for a minute, trying to catch his breath, Dan remembered his sister and quickly made his way back to her. Goofy had just helped her back up, but Dan crashed into her causing the both of them to fall to the ground. "Are you okay?" Dan asked.

"Well now I'm not!" Sam pushed him off. She grimaced as she gently placed her hand over her right shoulder. "I knew it had fire, but I didn't know it was going to be able to do that."

They all heard a loud yawn come from behind them. "What a racket," the doorknob commented. "How's a doorknob to get any sleep?" Sora approached the door to apologize, but the doorknob made the largest yawn they had seen yet. Inside of its mouth, a bright light in the shape of a keyhole appeared. Sora's Keyblade flashed into his hand and made a jerking motion toward the keyhole. A beam of light shot out from the tip of the Keyblade and made its way into the doorknobs mouth. After a second, the beam disappeared and they heard a clicking sound like he had just locked something. Out from the doorknob's mouth, a green bean-shaped object fell out onto the floor.

"You hear that? Sounded like something closed." Sora commented.

Goofy picked up the bean and gave it a good look. "This gummi ain't like the others. No, sir."

Donald took it out of his hand and also investigated it. "Okay, I'll hold on to it." He put the gummi block into his pocket.

"Splendid. You're quite the hero." The misfortune of the group had to continue due to the Cheshire Cat reappearing behind them. "One must be rewarded for a satisfactory skirmish." A box like the ones that held evidence during the trial appeared in Sora's hands. "If you're looking for Alice, she's not he She's gone! off with the shadows, into darkness." With that, the cat disappeared for hopefully the last time.

"No..." Sora looked down at the present in his hand. He didn't feel like he deserved it.

Donald gave Sora a pat on the back. "Let's go back to our gummi ship. We might find her in another world." The table had sprung back out of the ground after the Heartless disappeared so they were able to take a sip out of the other bottle to grow back into their regular sizes.

"Are you going to open that?" Dan pointed at the box Sora was glumly caring around. "'cuz if you don't..." Sora handed over the box without saying a word. "Sweet," Dan started to open the box but stopped when he noticed his sister glaring at him. "What? Aren't you curious about what on earth the cat could have gifted us?"

"Curiosity killed the cat, you know," Sam chided. "For all we know it could just be another Heartless antenna anyway."

"Only one way to find out." Dan opened the box. A chilling feeling filled the hallway they were walking through. Little shards of what looked like ice flew around the group like a small tornado then shattered into dust, floating down to the ground.

"That was a new spell!" Donald happily quacked. He closes his eyes in thought for a few seconds. "Blizzard, that will come in handy!"

"You can just tell what the spell is, like that? That's so cool!" Sora beamed at Donald who scratched at the back of his head in embarrassment.

Dan got out his sword and pointed it away from everyone. "Blizzard!" He shouted. Nothing happened. He lowered his sword down in confusion. "I think this spell is a dud."

Donald laughed at him. "Not just anyone can use magic. It can take years of practice before you can have even a small shard of-"

"Blizzard!" Sora shot out a barrage of icicles down the hallway they had come from. "It works for me," He smugly leaned on his Keyblade. The duck couldn't decide whether to look mad or dismissive at the boy. 

"Wait, Sam cast a fire spell earlier, and whatever that white stuff was." Sam looked to have noticed an interesting tile on the ground to examine as Dan questioned her abilities.

"Don't worry, Dan. I can't use magic either, ah-yuck." Goofy placed his arm over Dan's shoulder. “We'll just have ta’ be in the front to guard them. It's still an important role."

"Yeah, I guess." He moved Goofy's hand off of him. "It just looked really useful back there. Can't you tell me some kind of shortcut to learn magic faster?" Dan looked over at Donald.

"Don't be silly! There are no shortcuts to magic. If you really want to learn magic, you first have to focus on the magic capabilities in your body anyway. Now let's get back to the ship before any more stupid questions are asked." Donald sneered.

"Okay, fine. I have a not-stupid question though," Dan said as they all stopped at the bottom of the hole. "How do we get back to the ship?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was certainly a doozy. The ending was already hard enough for me to write, but then my computer drowned and I had to wait a month before getting a new computer. That certainly put a dampener on my will to write. Seeing an email notification that someone followed this story on one of the locations it is posted on gave me back that will though. I hope you enjoy this.

"Tidus always acted like he was the best, but Selphie was really the hardest to approach with her jump rope always swinging around her. Wakka was always dangerous when fighting in a group. His blitzballs would just snipe me like it was nothing!" Sora was describing the mock battles he and other kids from his world would participate in. "Of course, Riku was the strongest of us all. I was so close to beating him this one time! I bet if I had just a bit more time I finally would have won, but then the Heartless came and..." He trailed off as he started to remember the night he ended up in Traverse Town.

"You, um," Dan tried to think of something to change the topic to. "You guys would just hit each other for fun? Was there really nothing else to do?"

"Hey, we could all take it!" Sora snapped out of his own thoughts. "There was also this race course we built on the back of our island. We'd jump across tree tops, fly by on a zipline and run across a bridge that we really needed to patch up more." He placed his hands behind his head and smiled. "Okay, so maybe it was a bit dangerous, but what did you guys do for fun?"

"For starters, we didn't train ourselves for the army," Dan snorted. "I beat people up in video games or watched people get beaten up on TV instead."

Sam rolled her eyes. "How sophisticated. There wasn't that much to do, but sometimes I'd play hide and seek in stores with my friends. Scary movie nights were always a ton of fun too."

"I didn't know you guys played hide and seek. Why wasn't I invited?"

"Maybe because they were my friends and I didn't need to invite you to everything I did."

"Well..." Dan crossed his arms. "They never seemed to have any problems with me and I didn't really have anyone to hang out with."

Sam hesitated for a bit then asked, "What about James?"

"James? I mean, I guess he was a friend but, well, I don't really think he cared about me that much." Dan tilted his head, remembering his interactions with James. "He liked to tell me all about the projects he worked on but I wasn't able to help him or anything. Kind of seemed like I was just a rubber duck."

"A what?" Donald looked back at them from the pilot's seat of the ship.

"Just a figure of speech," Sam replied to the duck before looking back at her brother. "You always cut yourself short. There's a pretty big brain in that head. Maybe a bit too dense, and often brain dead, and your mouth can be faster than your thoughts...where was I going with this?"

"There was supposed to be a compliment somewhere in there, I'm sure of it." Dan looked over at Sora for assistance. "Did you hear anything nice come out of her mouth?"

Sora waved his hands in front of him. "I don't think I wanna be a part of this. It's hard enough telling if you two even like each other at all."

"I can't believe you can't tell that I," Dan got up and gave a large bear hug to Sam before she could realize it was coming, "just absolutely love my sister." Sarcasm was completely dripping off of his lips.

"Keep showing me love like this and I can show you just how much love can hurt." Sam tried to get her arms free but they remained pinned down until her brother deemed it time to drop his hug.

"She might be a snobby older sister, but she's still my older sister." Dan sat back down in his chair.

"Land ho!" Goofy shouted while pointing at a new world they were quickly approaching. It was full of lush, green flora. A giant treehouse covered the entire top of the world and a large tree circled its way around the middle of the world ending all the way at the bottom. A waterfall started at the bottom of the treehouse with the water being visible until it got a certain distance below the world, just completely disappearing. All in all, it was hard to tell if there would actually be people living in a jungle like this. The only hint of civilization being that treehouse. "Hey, Donald, maybe King Mickey's down there."

"In a backwater place like that? No way! Let's move on." Donald began to move the wheel so they could go around.

Sora jumped out of his seat up to Donald. "Hold on. Riku and Kairi might be down there. Let's just check it out."

"Forget it!" Donald slapped Sora's hand away from the controls. "We're on an important mission!"

"Just land!"

"No!"

"Come on!" The two started to wrestle with each other, stopping themselves from being able to touch the controls.

"I don't think we can just skip worlds because they don't seem important," Dan tried to chime in, but the two ignored him as they continued to struggle.

Getting slightly an upper hand, Sora quickly jabbed at the button he remembered seeing Donald use to have the ship move forward. "We're landing!" The ship began to shake uncontrollably as it moved towards the jungle world.

"Don't touch that! Nooo!" Donald tried to stop the ship but it was too late.

Before Sam could finish shouting "seatbelts" they crashed into the atmosphere.

Sam woke up with a gasp and thrashed around in the water she landed in. Spitting water out of her mouth, she pushed her hair out of her face and looked around at her surroundings. She found herself to be in the middle of a lake surrounded by thick walls of trees. Some hippos were enjoying a nap at one of the banks. Dan, Sora, Donald and Goofy were nowhere in sight.

After swimming to the shore, Sam tried wringing the water out of her clothes but she still felt pretty weighed down by them. She opened her mouth to shout but then stopped herself. She didn't know what kind of creatures might answer her if she calls out for the others. "Don't worry, Sam, there's got to be some form of civilization here. It can't only be full of animals." She found an area off of a bank that had trampled down ground and began to follow the path. "Just need to find that treehouse, maybe the others will be there too."

The path narrowed quite a bit but Sam was still able to move forward without worry of walking into any branches or brush. In fact, she noticed that there was some brush that looked like it was chopped off by some kind of blade. She quickened her pace in hopes of finding the others ahead. It could have even been her brother with his sword that caused that. Eventually she emerged into a clearing with the first thing she could see being a table with a large chemistry set on it. "Science? Yes, I've found my people!" She raised her hands in triumph. Next to the chemistry table was a wood fired oven and a large stack of boxes. A tent was set up behind all of them.

"Hello, is anyone here?" Sam raised her voice toward the campsite. She started to make her way to the tent when the door flap was pushed to the side for a girl that looked slightly older than Sam to come out. "Hey, do you happen to have any towels?" She asked the girl before the other could say anything.

"Where did you-what?" The girl looked at the still mostly soaking wet intruder in front of her. "Well, I guess, yes. Would you like to come in?"

"That would be amazing, thank you." Sam waited patiently as the girl continued to stare at her for a bit, before she realized she had invited her in, so pushed the door flap back to the side to allow them both in. "This is a pretty amazing campsite you've got set up. Are you here just by yourself?" Sam asked as the other girl rustled around in some boxes. Her long brunette hair was covering half of the white tank top she was wearing. Below the tank top was some kind of brown cloth she was using as a wraparound skirt that went to right above her knees.

"Thank you, my father and I wanted to make sure we were completely prepared for this expedition." The girl found a towel and handed it to Sam. Daddy's gone off to wait for the ship to arrive for our return trip...You aren't from that ship, are you."

"Oh, uh, no," Sam wiped the towel over her face while quickly trying to think of an alibi. "I came here as a part of an expedition myself. Unfortunately I got separated from the rest of my crew and found myself lost in a lagoon. Thankfully I found this place. I have no idea where everyone is right now."

The girl's questioning look only grew stronger as Sam kept talking. "Another expedition? I'm surprised we didn't hear anything about that. Which institute sent you here to study the gorillas?"

"Gorillas?" Sam pursed her lips. "Oh boy."

"Jane!" A man with long, wavy hair wearing only a loincloth walked into the tent on his hands and feet.

The girl who must be Jane turned towards him. "Tarzan!" The flap opened again and Sora walked in. "Oh, and who is this?"

"Uh, hi there. I'm-"

"Sora!" Sam got up and ran to Sora, who excitedly raised his arms in the air, possibly expecting a hug, but instead received a punch in the face. "You idiot, you could have gotten us all killed!"

"So, he must be a part of your team and not related to Tarzan..." Jane glanced between the three people in front of her. Rubbing his cheek where he got hit, Sora exchanged glances with Tarzan. "Are you two here to study the gorillas then?

"Highly doubtful." Once again the flap to the tent was pushed out of the way for more people to enter. This time an older man in a safari outfit came in holding a rifle. Behind him were Donald and Goofy.

"Sora, Sam!" Goofy shouted.

"Goofy! Donald!" Sora rushed over and locked hands with Donald and they both jumped up and down before realizing just what they were doing, then let go of each other, turned around and crossed their arms. Goofy looked dejected at the both of them.

"A circus of clowns. Not much use for hunting gorillas," The man turned around to head back outside.

"Don't you mean 'study the gorillas?'" Sam looked concerned at the man. He ignored her and kept walking out.

Jane frowned as well. "Mr. Clayton can be a handful but he doesn't mean harm." She then looked at the now full tent and sighed. "Well, the more the merrier. Do make yourselves at home."

Still having his back turned to the duck, Sora said, "Well, anyway..." Then at the same time as the duck, finished with "I'm staying." Hearing that, Sora turned around in surprise. "Huh?"

Goofy walked closer to Sora, holding something in his hands. "Sora, look what we found. Look At this." Sam peaked over at his hands as well. A red cube was in it.

"What's that?" Sora asked.

"A gummi block. It's the same stuff used to build our ship."

"So that means..." Sora couldn't really think why that meant they wanted to stay.

Donald perked up. "The king could be here. So, we've gotta work together to look for him. For now." He quickly added that last part.

"Fine. I'll let you tag along. For now." Sora mentioned that last part in the same tone Donald used.

Sam got between the two of them and bonked them both on their heads with her firsts. "You better believe we're all staying here. I see we are still missing an important member of our crew!" Goofy looked around, realizing that Dan was missing while the other two rubbed the top of their heads.

"Can you please stop hitting me?" Sora whined.

"If you promise never to crash the ship again, then maybe I'll think about it," Sam grumpily went back to drying herself off. "You're lucky I didn't land somewhere rocky."

"Oh, so you're the reason you all got separated." Jane said. "It's a good thing Tarzan and Clayton found you."

"Yeah, what's up with Tarzan though? Sora asked.

"Apparently Tarzan was raised in the jungle by the gorillas. Communicating with him still isn't easy, but he's learning."

"So he was speaking in 'gorilla' back there...He said my friends Riku and Kairi are here. And one word I couldn't understand..."

"Why don't we try this?" Jane waved at a projector in the middle of the tent. "We'll show Tarzan some slides and see if any of them match that word."

The first slide showed a picture of a castle surrounded by trees. It must have been quite tall since clouds were low enough to block some of its view. The castle had a lot of ramparts that looked like giant steam pipes. Sora made a strange sound when the slide was put in.

Goofy looked over at the boy. "What's wrong, Sora?"

"What?" he pried his eyes off of the picture. "Um...nothing." He went back to staring at the castle.

The other slides had a gorilla, which Tarzan was personally fascinated by, a man on a type of bicycle that had the front wheel considerably larger than the back wheel, a man giving a woman flowers, and a few other pictures. "Well, Tarzan?" Jane asked after turning off the projector.

Sora stepped closer to the man and leaned down at him. "Where are my friends, Riku and Kairi?" Tarzan could only shake his head. Sora stood back up. "Hey, I thought-"

"That leaves just one place." Clayton entered back into the tent. They all looked at him waiting for an answer, but he waited a bit longer to make sure he had all of their attention. "Young man, we've been in this jungle for some time now. But we have yet to encounter these friends of yours. I'd wager they're with the gorillas, even that other boy that girl is looking for." He pointed at Sam, then moved his finger toward Tarzan. "But Tarzan refuses to take us to them."

"Really, Mr. Clayton." Jane remarked. "Tarzan wouldn't hide-"

"Then take us there!" Clayton raised his hands in the air. "Take us to the gorillas." He walked right up to Tarzan. "Go-ril-las." Tarzan stared at Clayton in thought, then looked over at Sora and nodded.

"Tarzan...are you sure?" Jane concernedly asked.

"Tarzan go see Kerchak." Donald and Goofy looked surprised as it was the first time they heard him speak.

"Kerchak?" Jane questioned.

"He must be the leader. Perfect." Clayton took out a pipe and took a few puffs from it. "I'll go along as an escort. After all, the jungle is a dangerous place." Sam did not like the smirk that appeared on his face.

They made their way out of the campsite and headed back to the lagoon Sam initially had awoken in. Following Tarzan's lead, they jumped over small pools of water or even over the backs of resting hippos to end up at a very slender tree that went all the way up to the treetops. Tarzan grasped his hands and toes around the wooden pole and began to climb.

"You've got to be kidding me." Sam looked up with her mouth agape at the giant climb they would have to make. Goofy started to climb up next. He held on with both his hands and put his feet on opposite ends of the tree, then made a leap up and grabbed back on, repeatedly hopping up like a frog.

"What's wrong, little girl, too hard?" Clayton laughed as he climbed up the tree just with his arms. His feet dangled below him.

"Don't call me a little girl." Sam pushed Donald out of the way and moved her hand toward the tree but then hesitated. Realizing her own hesitation, she glared at the tree and confidently grabbed onto it. She lifted a leg and wrapped it around the tree, then pulled herself up, loosening the grip on her leg before tightening it again to be able to move her hands further up. The tree surprisingly had a lot of friction and wouldn't let her slip down.

When they climbed to the top, they were met with golden rays of light illuminating the tops of the trees. The leaves slightly reflected all of the light to give the area a warm glow. Birds of so many different colors flew around them. In essence: it was beautiful. They followed Tarzan across branches of the many trees until he suddenly stopped, holding his hand to the side. He began to make many grunting sounds while looking up. The others followed his gaze and froze at the sight of a giant, black gorilla at least three times the size of Clayton. Next to him was a smaller, brown gorilla that could have been his mate. The conversation between Tarzan and what must have been Kerchak didn't seem to be going well as Tarzan sounded like he was becoming more desperate with his noises. The large gorilla remained calm but stern.

While Tarzan was still talking, Kerchak turned his head further toward the treetops like he had sensed something. Tarzan grew silent and hung his head down in defeat as the two gorillas walked away.

"I'm guessing that didn't go well?" Sora looked at the others.

"That Kerchak fella seemed sorta distracted by something." Goofy looked off toward where the two gorillas headed.

"Hey, we lost Clayton!" Donald shouted while looking around. It was true, Clayton had disappeared at some point, perhaps even before they met the two gorillas.

Sam bit her lip. "I have a bad feeling about this. Tarzan, do you know where Kerchak is going?"

Tarzan nodded his head and they were off. "Do you think something happened to Clayton?" Sora asked as they ran up a bent tree branch.

"Don't you think there's something sketchy about him? I'm more worried about anything that gets in his path."

At some point, Sora recognized the area they were in. "Oh, we must be heading to the tree house!" This turned out to be correct as Tarzan led them up a thick branch that began to have wooden boards nailed into it to make it easier to walk up.

As they got up to one of the sides of the treehouse, Donald looked into a window and completely freaked out as he quickened his pace, leaving everyone in the dust. After running around the building, he jumped at Clayton, who was crouched and pointing his gun into the house, and screamed as loud as he could into the man's year. This caused Clayton to recoil while shooting and the others saw him barely miss a younger gorilla who was playing with a globe. The gorilla scampered up some stairs to a balcony that Kerchak had just arrived on. "What's the big idea?" Donald huffed at the hunter who was now sitting on the floor in a daze.

"Wait, Kerchak. Please!" Tarzan shouted at the gorilla. Kerchak merely scowled at them before turning around and walking away. The younger gorilla went to follow, turned her head back at Tarzan for a second, then continued walking away. Tarzan turned toward Clayton, frowning.

"You don't understand. I was only trying to..." Clayton looked around nervously. "Ah. A snake slithered by, you see. I saved that poor gorilla's life." Tarzan lowered his head as the others continued watching him in disgust.

After dragging Clayton back to the campsite, they explained what happened to Jane. Clayton tried to rebuttal the claims as much as he could. The further they continued in the description of the incident, the more enraged she became. "How could you do such a thing!" She shouted once they had finished.

"Now, Miss Porter, as I told you, I was not aiming at the gorilla." Clayton continued to try to suade her.

"Jane walked forward and pointed a finger aggressively at the hunter. "You are not to go near the gorillas again!"

He backed up with his hands defensively in front of him. "All because of one mishap? Come, now..." He stopped as he noticed just how many people there were glaring at him. Even with how small most of them were, it was never a good idea to get on the bad side of six people all in the same room.

Having given up, Clayton backed out of the tent and mosied over to the edge of the campsite. "What am I doing with these imbeciles?" With his rifle out, he surveyed the jungle in front of him. As he continued to stand there, he could only think about his failure at shooting that gorilla and became more enraged. "Blasted gorillas! I'll hunt down every last one of them! I'll track them down somehow." He set his rifle down for a second to take out his pipe and light it. "I'll stake my life on it," he threatens between taking puffs of the smoke.

Some rustling in the brush nearby caused Clayton to quickly put his pipe away and reach back for his rifle. Cocking it, he pointed the rifle towards the disturbance. The rustling got closer and closer as Clayton pressed his finger on the trigger.

The others in the tent heard the gunshot go off from outside. "Did he find a gorilla?" Sam ran outside to try to stop him. Instead of finding Clayton though, she found a circle of Heartless that looked like dark blue monkeys with golden bracelets around each wrist and foot. "Guys, Heartless!" Sam shouted back at the tent. The others were thankfully already making their way out of the tent as well.

"Here too?" Donald was shocked by their appearance. The world had been peaceful up to now, besides the gorilla-hungry hunter. The monkeys were quite agile and would jump out of the way when anyone tried to attack them. After jumping backwards from Sora as he swung his Keyblade, one of them jumped and repeatedly slashed its claws while falling onto the boy. The monkey got blasted by a fireball by Donald but not before it left nasty scratches over Soras arms. That Heartless was heavily damaged but still ready to continue attacking.

Even Sam's homing magic was having a hard time keeping up with the monkeys. One of them might as well have joined a tap dancing ensemble with the way it was able to move around the magic so gracefully. Unfortunately for it, that did not stop Goofy's shield bashing into the side of it. Sam was able to finish it off once the Heartless was knocked to the ground. "Great idea, Goofy." Sam complimented the dog. "Sora, Donald, focus on the same enemy. They can only fully dodge one of you. Tarzan," Sam looked over at Tarzan, who was actually doing a great job at stabbing the Heartless with his long spear. "You keep doing that."

Soon enough all of the Heartless were defeated and the party was able to breathe a sigh of relief. The gorilla, who had initially ran off as soon as an opening arrived, came back and handed something to Tarzan. It ended up being a gummi piece, which he gave to Sora, saying the gorilla thanked them for the help. At least, that's what Sora guessed he was trying to say.

They returned back into the tent to warn Jane of what was happening. "There's some, uh, rival monkeys going crazy and-and attacking the gorillas!" Sora stuttered out. "We were able to help a gorilla, but you should stay inside for now. They might attack you too."

"They must be quite vicious if even the gorillas are terrified of them," Jane looked quite concerned. "I wonder if that was what Mr. Clayton was shooting at then. He's really not a bad person-just a bit impetuous. I do hope he is safe..."

"Yeah, we still haven't found Dan yet and things are getting a lot more dangerous." Sam was sitting down with her legs crossed, her chin rested on her hands. "Where could he be?"

Sora looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry."

The girl looked up at Sora. "Hey, it's not...no, I really can't say it's not your fault..." She looked back down and started to draw a circle on the floor with a finger. "What happened, happened. We just need to figure out a solution to all of this."

"I bet we'll find 'em." Goofy tried to assure them. "Maybe we should go check out places we haven't been to yet. I think there was a path near where Donald and I landed."

"Let's go then!" Sora summoned his Keyblade to his hand. "There could be more gorillas in danger too." He ran out of the tent while the others looked perplexed at each other. As Sam was still working on standing up, Sora ran back in. "Where are we going?"

While they were trying to figure out where Dan was, Dan was trying to figure out the same thing. Once again he woke up in pain. This time his backside was all wet. A large groan escaped his lips as he sat up and stretched out his back. Several popping sounds later, he was ready to look at his surroundings. The damp cave he was sitting in was shaded but still got enough sunlight through the large waterfall that encompassed the entire side. Thankfully he was back enough away from the waterfall that it wasn't splashing him.

Dan got up on his wobbly legs and held a hand against a rocky wall near him. He tried to remember what the world had looked like from the cockpit of the gummi ship. There had been a waterfall, but it didn't really look like a cave was behind it, and who knew where the others ended up. He was definitely going to give Sora a good kick in his rear end whenever he found him. For the moment though, all he could do was move forward, at least until he found out that the cave consisted of multiple platforms jutting out of the walls. "No, that's fine. I guess I can just die here." He was about to fall over to wait for death's embrace when shrieks from nearby got his attention. The platform right below him had a tunnel going deep into it, far away from the waterfall, and through it he was able to hear shrieks and cries from some sort of animals. "Alright, fine," Sam said as he lowered himself on the edge of his platform. He slid off and landed on his feet, his legs bending as much as they could, then very slowly stood back up. "I guess my curiosity can be the death of me instead."

He made his way through the tunnel as quickly as his bruised body would let him. The cries were becoming louder and louder, which at least meant that Dan wasn't yet too late to find out whatever was happening. In the dark, he saw a large, hairy body come running from the other side. He flinched as it got to him, but it simply ran past the boy. He realized afterward that it was one of the things making all of the shrieking sounds.

At the end of the tunnel, he found an open area still surrounded by rock walls, but he was able to see the sky far above the room. He didn't have much time to look up though since blue monkeys with the same emblems he had seen other Heartless have were busy attacking some gorillas. The gorillas were shouting, gnashing their teeth and pounding the ground with their fists, but the Heartless didn't care at all. "Maybe there aren't any humans on this world and it's just a planet full of apes." Dan pondered. "Either way..." He equipped his sword and pointed it at the closest blue monkey. "There's always Heartless that need to get beaten."

The rest of the party followed Donald and Goofy through a thicket of bamboo. Past the thicket, which Donald mentioned was where Clayton found them, they crawled between two cliff walls only to find a dead end.

"Unless the world expects us to run up a rock wall, I don't think we're supposed to go this way," Sam said as she turned back around.

"Is this really all there is?" Sora continued to survey the area for anything that could be useful. Nothing of interest could be found. "Well, maybe there's some more things to check out on the treetops. Me and Tarzan can show you where we slid down these slipper trees to get to the campsite!"

Just then, they heard a gunshot come back from the bamboo thicket. "Aha!" Sam shouted. "I bet Clayton is involved somehow in all this. Let's get him!" She and the others raced back into the thicket.

In an open area surrounded by the bamboo, Tarzan approached a large rock on the ground. "What's that?" Sora pointed at the object Tarzan picked up from the rock. Tarzan handed it over while sounding like it was an important thing. "Uh, a pipe?" Sora examined the tobacco pipe in his hand. A gunshot from right behind him caused Sora to cup his hands over his ears in pain.

The others did the same while looking behind him in shock. Sora expected Clayton but Tarzan was still the only one there. "How did you do that?!" Donald stared slack jawed at the wild man.

"Why did he do that?" Sam asked frustratedly.

Goofy thought about it for a second. "Maybe Tarzan's trying to tell us that pipe is Clayton's." Tarzan excitedly nodded his head at the dog.

Sam raised her arms up and slammed them back down into her sides. "So he's no longer here? He must've headed back to the campsite right? Come on, we can't let him get away!"

"Don't ya think we should be lookin' for your brother instead?" Goofy asked her. "Clayton can probably handle himself against the Heartless."

"Handle himself?" Sam scoffed. "He's probably controlling the Heartless somehow. If we deal with him, then I won't have to worry about the Heartless attacking Dan. It's simple!"

"Hey, it was bad he tried shooting that gorilla, but I don't really think he's a bad guy. Jane sees the good in him too." Sora said. "Why do you think he's some evil guy? We've never even heard of people controlling the Heartless."

Sam balled her fists up. "I don't-okay, I'm just guessing about the controlling Heartless part, but I can tell he is definitely a bad guy. You just-just believe me, please!" She ran over toward the path that led back to the campsite, then turned back around. "I'll prove it to you!"

"Sam!" Tarzan charged at her with his spear readied. Surprised, Sam reacted by kneeling down and pulling her staff out of her pocket. A large blur of yellow and black appeared from over her, then Tarzan swung at it with his spear, pushing it to the side.

"Not that thing again," Sora equipped his Keyblade while Donald and Goofy did the same with their weapons. Sam turned around to face where Tarzan sent the thing. It was a ferocious looking leopard. Tarzan lept at the leopard, but it quickly got back on its feet and jumped back through the bamboo surrounding them all.

Everyone remained silent, except for some heavy breathing coming from Tarzan. Rustling sounds could be heard past the bamboo, but it would go silent then start back up in a much further area. "Fire!" Donald shouted and a ball of fire erupted from his staff and went through the bamboo that was right behind him where the rustling had gotten too close for his comfort. Unfortunately the leopard didn't jump out but used this distraction to run a bit further and jump out at Sora. With surprising agility, Sora jumped over the leopard's attack then swung down at her as gravity overcame him. The leopard withstood the hit and slashed her claws at Sora who quickly backed away after taking the damage. Sam sent her own fireball at the leopard and scored a direct hit.

Tarzan once again tried to go in for an attack, but the leopard backed away and ran at Sora again. She seemed to have a sweet tooth for the boy while being very wary of the man with the spear. Goofy stood in front of Sora and took the attack with his shield. The shield rang out from the head that ran into it, and the leopard slowly stepped back while shaking her head. Tarzan used this to deal the final blow and stabbed her through the chest with his spear. The leopard fell over onto its side and remained there.  
"Wow, I thought you were about to attack me." Sam said to Tarzan, who looked at her with concern.

"Do you think this is what Clayton shot at?" Donald asked while he kicked at the leopard.

Sora grimaced at the thought. "You might be right. It didn't have any wounds though so..."

Sam confusedly looked at the leopard. "No, that doesn't make sense. But then...and the Heartless..." She walked back and forth a few steps. "Well that just puts us back at square one! Where is Dan?"

"Let's go back to the tent," Donald suggested. Sora needs-I mean, I could use a break."

"Huh? You look fine to me, Donald." Goofy examined the duck.

"No one asked you!"

The campsite was completely trashed. The table with a tea set was on its side, all of the china in pieces all over the ground. Several of the boxes had large gashes in them or were completely crushed. The tent, while still standing, had hundreds of tears all over it. The poles keeping it up were sagging toward the middle. Tarzan ran into the tent before the others could fully comprehend what was going on. The projector in the tent had fallen over and broken into several pieces. Most of the boxes of supplies were also damaged. Tarzan stood in place near the entrance and stared at the empty spot where Jane was usually standing.

"Did the leopard do this too?" Sora asked. Sam held up a hanging piece of the tent wall and then let go, watching the cloth slowly fall down. Goofy scratched his head while looking at the ceiling. Donald was kneeling down while looking back at the entrance of the tent, which no longer had a cloth over it.

Tarzan shook his head. "Not Sabor. Something coming. Jane, danger. Jane near... Near tree house."

Donald stood up and faced everyone. "Sounds like trouble. Let's go."

As they left, Sora noticed a potion on the ground. "Finders keepers!" He chugged it and the scratches he received from the leopard faded away.

They passed by the hippo lagoon once again and climbed the trees. After swinging around the treetops using vines, they arrived at a clearing right before the treehouse. A large tree stood in the middle, with a giant purple fruit hanging on its side. "Tarzan!" Jane shouted at them from behind bars made of thorny vines. The young gorilla they saw Clayton almost shoot was also with her.

Tarzan leapt over to her in a single bound and swung his spear at the vines, but they withstood the attack. Before he could think of anything else to try, a large wave of the monkey Heartless appeared all around them and began to attack. "Remember last time, guys! Goofy, you're with me. Sora, you distract the Heartless for Donald," Sam ordered.

"Can't I team with Goofy instead?" Sora complained.

"What? You're both better at close range combat. That wouldn't make sense." She and Goofy had already taken out two of the Heartless.

"I could work with Donald instead, if it makes him feel better," Goofy suggested. Sora nodded his head enthusiastically at this.

"Stop encouraging him!"

"Will somebody help me?" Donald was surrounded by three of the monkeys who were easily dodging his fire magic and swings of his small rod. Sora reluctantly cast blizzard toward the duck's direction, hitting all of the monkeys and also Donald.

"That's it!" Donald shook off bits of ice from his body. "Goofy, get over here now!" The dog hurried over in concern since he and Sam already got rid of the Heartless on their side, while Sora leisurely made his way over to Sam with a big grin plastered on his face.

Sam rapped her staff against the top of Sora's head. "Ow, what did I do?" While the boy massaged his head, Donald and Goofy made quick work of the remaining Heartless. Tarzan was still trying to find a way past the vines blocking Jane and the gorilla. They all joined him, but none of their weapons were able to make a scratch. "I know, I'll burn them away." Sora readied his Keyblade, but Sam moved his weapon away with her staff.

"I think you're done using magic today." She examined one of the vines and wrapped her fingers around an area with no thorns. She could feel it pulsing. "I know vines are living things, but this feels...more alive?" She quickly backed away as Sora casted a fire spell. "What did I just-" She stopped once she realized the spell wasn't directed at the vines. Behind her, Donald was ducking behind Goofy and a monkey Heartless was still flying back from the direct hit of the spell. Even more of the Heartless were approaching.

"Where do ya think they keep coming from?" Goofy asked. They were already back in their formations to deal with the second wave.

"Something here." Tarzan mentioned as he joined the fight this time.

"Maybe that 'something' is also making those vines," Sam looked around the area. "Tarzan, help Donald and Goofy. We'll look for anything suspicious." Thankfully with Tarzan there, the Heartless were too preoccupied trying to survive to attack the two as they ran around, they had to avoid any new Heartless that appeared to replace the defeated ones though. Besides some unbloomed flowers, nothing looked too out of the ordinary. Nothing besides that giant purple fruit... "I'm an idiot." Sam slapped her palm to her forehead.

Sora saw her reaction to the fruit and readied his Keyblade. "I'm on it." With a few slashes, the fruit burst into purple smoke and the defeated Heartless stopped getting replaced. By the time they were able to finish the last of the Heartless, the vines blocking Jane and the gorilla shriveled up and died. Tarzan removed them with his spear and the two captives ran out and hugged him.

"What happened? How did you get here?" Sora asked Jane.

"Clayton came to the tent, and..." Jane tried to think. "That's the last thing I remember.

"Clayton?" Sora gasped. "But I thought..." He looked over to Sam who was shaking in anger.

"I knew it! That traitorous hunter was the cause of all of this!" Sam shorted her staff and put it back in her bag. "He's gotta be somewhere looking for the gorillas. Maybe he found their resting spot. Tarzan?"

The young gorilla was speaking to Tarzan. After she finished, he turned to the others. "Gorillas trapped. Terk ran."

"We must help the gorillas!" Jane stood confidently.

"No way, we'll go. You should go back to the camp," Donald said. Jane tried to argue but even Tarzan backed the duck up on this.

"Lead the way, Tarzan." Sora and the others followed the wild man through the jungle treetops. Sora looked on with glee when they approached a hollow trunk, which he said was how they originally got to the camp. They all jumped down and began sliding down a slick tree branch. By jumping from branch to branch and swinging across vines, they made their way back to the bamboo thicket. Sora looked like he was having the time of his life while the others all had stern looks on their faces.

At the thicket, Tarzan began to go to the cliffs, but Sora asked, "isn't that just a dead end?" Tarzan looked back at him for a second but then continued on.

They reached the dead end but this time it was full of action. Several gorillas, including Kerchak and his mate, were surrounded by more of the monkey Heartless. In the middle was Clayton, stoically leading the creatures. Kerchak realized it was the point to fight or die and ran through a bunch of the Heartless. Others jumped him though and through their numbers, pinned the gorilla to the ground. Clayton loaded his rifle, cocked it and pointed it at the gorilla leader. 

"No!" Clayton lowered his gun as Sora ran in, the others right behind him. "Clayton?" Sora looked at the hunter. Something felt off about him. His face was completely emotionless and his eyes looked clouded over. 

"Not Clayton!" Tarzan shouted, then said something in his gorilla language. "Not clayton!"

With Clayton distracted, the gorillas used this time to flee. Without constant orders, the Heartless on top of Kerchak became still and he was able to fling them off of him. The gorilla looked at Tarzan, and Tarzan looked back in agreement, like he was just told to take charge here. Kerchak then fled with the rest.

After noticing the gorillas' escape, the cloud over Clayton's eyes disappeared to be replaced with anger, and his face matched it as he yelled out. The Heartless immediately attacked the group who were ready with their weapons. Tarzan jumped past the monkeys and charged at Clayton, who aimed his rifle and shot at his attacker. Tarzan somehow jumped out of the way of the shot. Dirt jumped out of the ground where the shot went and scattered in the air. Tarzan landed on Clayton's chest with his feet and they both went down.

Donald worked on casting blizzard at any Heartless that approached him, no longer bothering to try to aim with his fire spell anymore. Goofy did his job of slamming into any Heartless that wasn't focusing on him. Sora and Sam switched between swinging their weapons at the monkeys close to them and sending out spells at any farther away. Soon enough, the Heartless were all gone.

Clayton was having a hard time keeping Tarzan back. Being too close to take a shot, he instead had a machete out to swing. Tarzan had the range though and pushed Clayton back into one of the cliffs with his spear. Noticing all of his minions were gone, Clayton put away the machete and brought back out his rifle. He held it upward while backing closer to the cliff behind him. The ground around them began to greatly rumble and everyone had to work on keeping their balance to not fall over. As the rumbling came to what felt like its climax, the entire cliff behind Clayton exploded. Sora held a hand up to his face while Donald and Sam hid behind Goofy and his shield.

After the dust had cleared, they were able to see another clearing behind Clayton. A smaller cliff was further back and they could catch a glimpse of a waterfall far behind it. Its sound was just barely reaching them. They weren't able to see anything that could have destroyed that cliff wall though. Having had enough of all of this, Tarzan ran after Clayton but got shot down. Sam rushed over to give him a potion while Sora watched Clayton climb on top of thin air and straddle it like he was riding something. The hunter reloaded his rifle while sitting there, the invisible creature moved slightly in place so they could see him swaying around.

"Come on, if we aim close to him, we'll probably hit something, right?" Sora became less confident in his suggestion with each word that came out of his mouth.

"Don't give up!" Goofy cheered as he ran forward like a bullet train into the invisible creature. He hit something but continued past it. Clayton had turned sideways, indicating the creature he was riding got pushed aside.

Good luck," Sam said to Sora as she started to swing her quarterstaff around and send magic blasts toward Clayton's direction. "That thing is after you." Sora turned back toward Clayton and his invisible ride just in time to see a large green blast of energy be sent right at him. He swiftly rolled out of the way, but that gave the creature a chance to jump right to Sora. The boy was sent back by what felt like claws slashing into him. This definitely wasn't a horse.

Tarzan and Goofy continued their assault from the rear while Clayton was solely focused on Sora. The hunter pointed his rifle at Sora to take a shot, but a fireball from Sam caused him to miss. Donald cast a few blizzard spells on the invisible creature and a rippling effect came over the area below where Clayton was seated.

The creature became visible, revealing a dark green chameleon. The giant lizard had yellow, bulging eyes and a long, curled up tail. The Heartless emblem sat proudly on its chest. The chameleon stretched itself forward and gave out a screech. Clayton, now looking much more intimidating riding a giant lizard and not the air, didn't look concerned at all that everyone could now see his minion. He worked on reloading his rifle, but Tarzan launched himself at the hunter and successfully knocked him off.

The chameleon didn't seem to notice the less weight on it and continued its attack. It held its hands together and charged up another green energy blast, but Sora easily dodged it since he was able to see it coming. Donald's continuous blizzard attacks actually caught the Heartless' attention and it kicked the duck to the ground with its hind legs. It then stood up on its legs and held its arms up, it's yellow eyes glowed white. The Heartless shoved its head forward and large energy shots, similar to Sam's, came out of its eyes and homed in on the duck. The first two hit Donald and he backed away in pain. As the Heartless charged up a second time, Sam tried to stop it with her own assault of magical shots, but it didn't even cause the chameleon to flinch. Sora rushed over to the duck and held his Keyblade out in a defensive position right before the enemy's shots came, but they went right through and blasted him back as well.

The chameleon once again charged its eye blasts. Sam moved to shooting fireball after fireball at it, but her staff fizzled out due to running out of magic power. She ran toward the Heartless to swing her quarterstaff at it, but Tarzan and Goofy beat her to it. They both slammed into the creature's chest with their weapons and the lights in its eyes dimmed and faded away, going back to its normal, yellow color. It started to sway back and forth, having a hard time keeping its balance on its hind legs. Clayton used this distraction to step in front of the still downed duck and boy and aimed his rifle at them.

"Don't you dare!" Sam shouted at the hunter. Surprisingly, Clayton raised his rifle and smirked at her.

"Or else what?" He chuckled. "Half of you are in no shape to fight back anymore, including you. I saw you run out of steam there." Sam gritted her teeth. She wasn't able to sense enough power in her to do any more magic, as he said. "Even that other boy trying to protect the gorillas is just about to face defeat from these helpers of mine, I can feel it."

Sam and Goofy both gasped at hearing this. "Do you mean Dan?" Goofy slowly asked.

Clayton only chuckled some more in response. "So tell me, little girl. What could you possibly do now against me?"

Sam's entire quarterstaff was shaking in her clenched fists as she looked below her at the ground. "I don't need magic to defeat you," she quietly responded. Sam raised her head. Tears were streaming from her face. "And I told you not to call me a little girl!" Clayton flinched at the anger emanating from the girl in front of him, which caused him to be too late in aiming his rifle at her as she ran up and swung her quarterstaff into his chest. The surprisingly forceful attack staggered him far enough back to fall into the chameleon, which was the last thing it needed to fall forward onto the hunter. Clayton screamed as he saw the Heartless emblem fall onto his face. The air around the two filled with shadowy dust and another large, crystalline heart floated up into the air. By the time it disappeared, nothing remained where Clayton and the Heartless had fallen.

Sam dropped her weapon and held a hand up to her mouth. "No..." Goofy and Tarzan were helping up Sora and Donald, who were still conscious. Tarzan gave them some kind of herb and they perked up more and were able to fully stand up. "I didn't mean to..."

Sora placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, are you alright?"

"I killed him." Sam whispered.

"You-" Sora hesitated. "You saved us. He fell into darkness and tried to kill us.

"But, he was still..." She bit her lip.

Tarzan shook his head. "Not Clayton."

"You were right all along about Clayton being a bad guy," Goofy added. "When he started working with the Heartless though, well, I think he might've been close to becoming one. I don't see anybody there." Goofy pointed at where Clayton and the large Heartless had disappeared.

Sam stared at the spot Goofy was pointing at for several seconds. "You guys are probably right. I'm sorry, I just..." She trailed off.

Before anyone could come up with something more to say, Kerchak came back. He looked at Tarzan with his usual stern stare, but then closed his eyes and changed to a calmer look. Tarzan excitedly smiled at him, then turned to the others. Sora was the first to be lifted up by the large gorilla to the surprise of the rest of them. He was quite indelicately thrown up to the top of the cliffside next to where the waterfalls were. The others were thrown up there also, one by one. Tarzan gracefully climbed up the wall to join them. Sora got up from the ground and dusted off his clothes. "This is amazing." He gawked at the sight of the waterfalls that covered up a large area of cliffs ahead of them.

"Tarzan home." 

Their wild companion led them into a cave opening which eventually opened into a cavern right behind the waterfalls. The cool mist felt great after dealing with the hot humidity of the jungle. They had to climb up several cliff faces and sidle across small gaps until they reached another cave opening that led away from all of the water. Before they could enter it, the young gorilla they had saved earlier came running out of it. She spoke to Tarzan and looked to be in a frenzy. "Someone...hurt. He translated to the others. Not gorilla."

Sam's throat tightened. "Could it be?" She sprinted past the others into the cave. This is the only place they hadn't checked yet. Was Dan at the end of the tunnel, and if he was, how injured could he- Sam shook her head and focused on trying to get there as fast as possible. She could hear plenty of footsteps far behind her. Thankfully no one was asking her to slow down.

The tunnel was becoming brighter and Sam was able to see tree branches swinging off in the distance. More Gorillas were waiting at the opening at the end. Sam skidded to a stop when she realized she was at a dead end and frantically looked around the area for any sign of a human. The gorillas moved away from the center of the clearing after noticing her, allowing Sam to see her brother laying on the ground covered in many wounds. "Dan!" She slid on her knees to him and looked for any signs of life, but thankfully he opened his eyes weakly after hearing her voice.

"Y-you finally made it." He winced in pain as he spoke. “It's about time.” He tries to get up but grunts some more and remains still. There were a terrible amount of scratches all over his body completely visible through the tears in his clothing. A steady stream of blood was flowing from below him.

Sam started to move her hands over the most open wounds but then changed her mind and dug in her side bag. "Here, drink this." She raised a potion up to Dan's lips and he complied. Some of the light wounds disappeared but it wasn't enough to heal the more critical injuries. "I-I don't have anything stronger."

"Everything's going to be fine. I trust you." Dan kept his eyes closed but was able to slowly raise a hand and place it on Sam's shoulder.

"I..." Sam looked down at her hands.

"Step aside." Donald confidently walked up to the two and studied Dan's damaged body. The longer he looked over Dan, the more deflated he looked. "What did you do?"

"Fought Heartless," Dan breathed out. He lifted his arm off the ground and pointed it toward the large tree that grew over the area. "Keyhole."

"A keyhole?" Sora walked up to the tree. Several butterflies flew off from the middle of the trunk revealing a natural looking spot in the bark in the shape of a keyhole. The Keyblade was summoned into Sora's hand as the keyhole began to glow blue. Whether Sora was doing it or not, the Keyblade once again pointed at the keyhole and a beam of light shot out, causing a locking sound to emit from the hole. Another gummi piece fell out and landed on the ground.

After he picked up the gummi piece, Sora turned around and fully noticed the state of Dan's body for the first time. He paled as he watched the others huddle around the downed boy. "What is all that red stuff?"

"It's blood," Donald responded. "There are people that need it to live, and he's lost a lot." Sora's face changed through multiple expressions of confusion and worry.

Tarzan ducked under Sam with more of his healing herbs. Donald held his hand out before he could place them down though. "Wait! Maybe these can work..." The duck picked up the herbs in one hand and held his stave in the other. A dull glow emitted from the tip of his stave and a wind current began to wind its way around them all. The herbs slowly rose up and joined the cyclical current, glowing a bright green. They moved faster and faster around the group until the green glow was mostly a blur. Even Sam drew her eyes away from her brother to be mesmerized by them. Then, a flash erupted around them and dozens of herb afterimages rain down to the ground.

Sam looked around as the green glows touched the ground and dissipated. Her brow furrowed when she looked back at Dan. "Did that heal him?" Her brother groaned out in pain as a response.

Donald held out a bottle with a light blue liquid in it to her. "No, but now we can. Sora, you too," he looked over to the boy. "On the count of three, we'll cast Cure on him."

The bottle was quickly emptied after Sam heard that. Unlike potions, which sent a feeling of warmth throughout the body, this drink made her feel more energized. There was no need for questions. They were all ready to cast the spell.

"One." Donald raised his stave up again, and the other two raised their weapons in suit. 

"Two." Goofy held a hand over his eyes, but then parted two of his fingers so he could still watch. 

"Three!" The three of them shouted "Cure!" and green glows started from their weapons and transferred to the damaged body on the ground. Donald rubbed at his eyes, trying to get them used to the dark again. After sparks stopped appearing in his vision, he was able to see Dan still laying down.

Sam slowly approached her brother. "Is he..." His body was still too tattered and bloodied to tell if his wounds were healed.

"Well, the pain is gone at least." Dan blurted out in shock. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"I swear the next time you get yourself almost killed, I'll finish the job." Sam choked back a sob. Her brother closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She wanted so badly to punch something hard, but the memory of the last thing she hit hard flashed in her mind and her anger went away. "Can we-can we just go now?"

Dan's eyes shot open and he tilted his head toward his sister. "Are you okay?"

"Hey," Sora piped up. "You're the one we're all worried about here! We've been running all over the jungle, fighting Heartless and dealing with a crazy guy with a gun to find you."

"And now I'm-" Dan tried to raise his upper body up with his arms, but then slipped and he went back down. "I'm fi-" He got further up but his legs didn't feel like even attempting to move. "I guess I'm tired." The boy pursed his lips then rolled over from his setting position so that he was wobbling violently on his knees. He looked at Sam with regret. "I'm sorry, I should have fled with the gorillas. Something just...I really felt needed here..."

"Following your heart as usual." Sam bit her lip. "Just remember you don't have to follow it alone. What else are siblings for?" She held out a hand for Dan to grab.

"Right," Dan nodded and accepted her help. "Not much stronger than the two of us combined." The two siblings stood together, with Dan leaning on Sam for assistance.

"Your heart..." Jane appeared from the tunnel, led by the young gorilla from earlier. "That must be what Tarzan meant!" She mimicked the sound he had made earlier. "It means 'heart.' Friends in our hearts..."

"Heart..." Tarzan repeated the word like he was testing the sound of it."

Sora glumly looked around at the opening they were in, realizing this was where they thought his friends would be. "Oh, so that's what it meant.

"Friends, same heart. "Tarzan put together. "Clayton, lose heart. No heart, no see friends. No heart, no friends." For not knowing that many words, he was surprisingly able to express his thoughts well.

Both Sora and Donald looked remorsefully at each other. It seemed Tarzan's words and Dan and Sam's incident put a sour mood on their negative relationship. "Sorry about what I said," Sora started.

"I'm sorry too," Donald quickly added.

The two were embraced from behind by Goofy. "Yeah. All for one, huh?" The boy and the duck chuckled along with the dog. This world had caused a lot of stress on the party, but all that did was cause them to grow closer.

Donald finally noticed the gummi piece that had fallen out of the Keyhole. "A gummi!" he announced as he picked it off of the ground.

"But it's sure not the king's." Sora and the others were surprised by how sad Goofy sounded, though his usual smile was still firmly planted on his face.

"So this was a big waste of time then?" Dan asked. "Who's bright idea was it again-" Sam slammed her palm over his mouth to shut him up.

"We do not need them fighting again," She whispered harshly into her daft brother's ear. Sam looked back to see how the trio reacted, but they were too distracted by the young gorilla nuzzling against Donald.

Jane lifted a hand up to her mouth to make a miserable attempt at hiding a laugh. "I think someone has a new admirer."

Donald looked at her, then at the gorilla, then quickly back to her. "No, no, no, no! Daisy would kill me!" His arms were waving as fast as they could in front of him to show he meant business in his rejection.

Everyone was laughing after that. The gorilla seemed confused, but even Tarzan understood what was happening. Sora straightened up after realizing what Donald had said. "Wait, who's Daisy?"


End file.
